The Swallow and the Hummingbird (50 page)

She settled back into her seat beside Maddie, who took her hand and held it for support without realizing that she no longer needed it. When George walked back down the aisle he cast a fleeting glance in her direction then swiftly withdrew his eyes and turned into his pew. His face was grim. Susan followed him but she didn’t look at Maddie. Determined not to let Rita cause her any more anxiety she tried not to dwell on the intense manner in which she had gazed upon her husband. She had no reason to feel insecure. George had made his choice a long time ago and they were very happy together. If Rita made him feel uncomfortable it was simply that seeing her so obviously alone must make him feel guilty indeed.

At the end of the service the congregation spilled out into the aisle and George was unable to reach Rita. He longed to talk to her. Perhaps that would do something to settle his rattled spirit. He saw the top of her head as she made her way out of the church with Maddie and struggled to move past the gossiping villagers. Susan watched him closely. She knew what was on his mind and she tried to convince herself that it would be a good thing if they spoke. Perhaps it would exorcize the ghost once and for all. She noticed that Charlie had already squeezed past his father and was talking to Daisy outside in the sunshine with her mother and grandparents while Ava had found Elsbeth doing pirouettes on a gravestone.

Frustrated that he couldn’t move any faster, George was tempted to throw people out of his way with brute force. Finally the slow-moving herd fanned out into the churchyard and he squinted in the bright sunshine. He scanned the faces for Rita’s. Susan saw her husband scour the yard and the disappointment that caused his face to sag. Then the rumble of an engine caught his attention and he cast his eyes across the green to where Rita was starting her car. Susan walked up behind him but she didn’t slip her hand into his as she once would have done. They both watched the car pull out. They both saw Rita turn and look at them. Her eyes settled on George for what seemed an interminable moment. Then she drove away.

Chapter 33

Rita sat on the beach with Pepper, one of the young bohemians who had been camped up on the bank in their orange Volkswagen all summer. It was early September. The amber glow of sunset seemed all the more wistful through the wafting cannabis smoke. The low strumming of a guitar resounded across the bay, carried on a gentle breeze that brought with it the cool undertones of autumn. Pepper’s friends were at the other end of the beach, building the fire and setting up for the night. Rita had grown tremendously fond of them all, especially Pepper, whose positive, untroubled nature reminded her of herself as a young girl, before George had returned from the war.

But right now her thoughts weren’t for George but for Max whom she missed as much as if she had lost a vital part of her body. What bothered her most was that their friendship had ended so viciously. They had shouted at each other, said things they regretted and they were both too proud to extend the olive branch. Rita longed for him to telephone her and apologize. She had played the conversation over and over again in her mind, imagining what she would say. However, she hadn’t yet the courage to acknowledge her deepest feelings.

‘You’re thinking of Max, aren’t you?’ said Pepper in her aristocratic voice. Christened Petruska she had been born in the highlands to an eccentric Scottish earl who left his staid English wife for a famous Russian dancer he had met in Moscow between the wars. Pepper was the product of that union. She had more money than she could spend and parents who were a great deal more interested in each other than in her. ‘Why don’t you just telephone him and apologize?’ she asked, running a hand through her long red hair.

‘He should apologize to me,’ Rita replied indignantly. She patted Tarka who lay sleeping by her side and dragged on her joint. ‘After all, he walked off and left me.’

‘One of you has to do it or you’ll end up a lonely old maid.’

‘I’m not lonely, I have all of you.’

‘We’ll be leaving soon.’

‘Leaving?’

‘Well, you didn’t expect us to hang around here indefinitely, did you?’

Rita was shocked. ‘I thought you liked it here.’

‘In the summer when the weather’s good. It’s getting colder now. I thought I might go to art school. I like painting. Mother wanted me to be a dancer like her, but my feet are too big. She would have preferred me to be pretty and petite like her. Sadly, I take after Papa. Maybe I’ll go to Florence.’

‘I’ll miss you,’ said Rita truthfully. Pepper had become a good friend. Someone she could confide in who was nothing to do with Frognal Point.

‘Come to Florence. You can learn to sculpt with the masters, surrounded by the best works of art in the world.’ It amused Rita that Pepper thought everyone had as much money as she did. In fact Rita was having trouble paying her bills now that she had given up working in the library.

‘I couldn’t leave Tarka.’

‘Bring her with you. Florence is the city of love. You’ll forget all about George and Max with all those delicious Italian men.’

‘That’s my problem, Pepper, I don’t want to forget. I like it here, surrounded by my memories and my family. If only Max hadn’t gone and ruined it all by proposing.’

‘He’ll have got over you by now. You know what men are like. Fickle. Archie gets through women like an anteater on an ant hill.’ She giggled at the thought of her friend who drove into town every evening in search of fresh blood. ‘He’s got to go back to Oxford. Term starts in October. I don’t want a boyfriend or a husband. They just complicate your life.’

‘Love complicates everything. To think that all the time I thought we were best friends, he was in love with me,’ she said. ‘I had never looked on him in that way. Now I’ve broken his heart.’

‘And George’s,’ Pepper added.

Rita sighed. ‘I have loved George all my life. Or have I?’

‘What do you mean?’ Pepper scrunched the butt of her joint into the sand.

Rita narrowed her eyes as the blinding sun slowly began to sink into the sea. ‘Maybe Max was right about George.’

‘What did he say?’

Rita frowned. ‘That for all these years, I’ve been in love with someone who no longer exists.’

Autumn swept in with gales and storms and Rita’s small band of drifters packed up and left, returning to their privileged lives. The winter months were dark and cold. Rita thought about Max often, picking up the telephone before losing courage and replacing the receiver. She didn’t see George again for Susan had convinced him to attend church in the neighbouring parish and, little by little, he ceased to occupy her thoughts as he had done before. Once or twice she visited their secret cave to feel the warmth of his presence there, as if he too had sought the comfort of memories in that special place only moments before. Now the bittersweet taste of those memories was distant and intangible for she had learned that she could never bring them back, or the George with whom she had grown up: Max had been right.

Christmas was damp in every sense. Max didn’t come home so Mrs Megalith was more cantankerous than ever, vociferously blaming Rita for his non-attendance. How could Rita explain that she missed him as much as her grandmother did? Elvestree wasn’t the same without him. It was far less magical and that year it didn’t even snow.

Rita settled into sculpting, a solitary occupation that cut her off even more from life outside. At first Mrs Megalith helped out by ordering the odd piece and Hannah had made endless requests for birds, but the reality was that she could barely scrape by.

By the spring Mrs Megalith had lost patience with her granddaughter’s foolishness and had withdrawn her patronage. Hannah had far too many sculptures of birds and nowhere to put them and the odd commission that had come from the library dwindled. Charming as her objects were, they didn’t have much appeal for those who didn’t know her. She was beginning to feel a dark sense of hopelessness. She had been imprudent to give up her job in the library, but since her fight with Max she had lost the confidence to continue her author events. Max had been the mastermind behind them and it was he who had put her in touch with all the authors. When she had approached publishers independently no one had been interested in her small library and some of them had been extremely rude. The change of occupation had been good, but it didn’t bring in much money. Rita wondered whether Max missed her as much as she missed him, or whether he had cut her out of his life and moved on. Occasionally she read about him in the national press or heard about him from Ruth, who had taken to visiting with Mitzi.

Ruth’s happiness was obvious. Her daughter was a constant source of delight to her, and her husband quite clearly loved her. They both exuded joy and serenity and Rita couldn’t help but feel envious.

Max coped with his unhappiness very differently. He lost himself in the scented flesh of beautiful women. He took them home to his town house in Cheyne Walk, made love to them, looked for the unique and special in every one, but awoke in the morning repulsed and disillusioned because each was the same as the last: lovely to look at but hollow inside. There was nothing singular for him to fall in love with. He thought of Rita and despaired that he would never find someone with whom to share his life. He longed for children. He thought of Lydia who didn’t even have the chance to live more than a couple of years. She had been less than mortal, a grain of dust in the wind that never found a place to settle, but he was determined to settle and sow and continue the cycle of life. In that way he would ensure his immortality and that of his entire family.

Secretly he fed upon the dream of buying back the Imperial Theatre, as if in some way he might recapture the world that was lost to him as a small boy. He fantasized about sitting in his father’s private box with Rita while an actress of unparalleled loveliness retraced his mother’s footsteps on the stage below. It was childish. Castles built in the air by the part of him that had never grown up. But he didn’t travel to Vienna. He feared he wouldn’t recognize it.

When Max met Delfine Bonville he saw a gentle character he thought he could grow fond of. She was an elegant French girl in her early twenties whose parents had settled in London just after the war. She worked at the French Embassy as a secretary, carrying home a bag of scrunched-up paper every day because she was embarrassed to fill the bin with all the typing errors she made. She was impressionable and naïve but charming. He liked the way she looked, with her dark chestnut eyes and short brown hair cut into a chic bob, because she didn’t remind him of Rita. Petite and feminine she was like a little magpie, seizing with unrestrained fascination upon anything that shone. There was no doubt that she was awed by Max’s celebrity and wealth but he was the first man she had taken to her bed who knew how to pleasure a woman. Most of the English lovers she had had considered sex a competition, like a game of tennis, the first to orgasm being the winner. Max was different, he was sensual and earthy and the longer he could make their lovemaking last the better. He would feast on her for hours and her Continental enthusiasm for sex made them both laugh.

He bought her jewellery, which she would take out every evening before she went to bed and play with like a child with a doll. She’d try on the rings and necklaces, striking different poses in the mirror, slipping in and out of the pretty dresses he bought her. Max found this childlike delight enchanting and took pleasure from her happiness. He spoiled her. Took her away for romantic weekends to Paris, Venice, even Morocco, and bought her everything she admired. He overwhelmed her with material things because he couldn’t give her his love. Rita had always held his heart and always would. How he wished she had treated it with more care.

When Rita finally swallowed her pride and prepared to make the first move, her intentions were dashed when Mrs Megalith announced in her tactless way that Max had fallen in love. ‘She’s French,’ she said admiringly. ‘Very pretty and charming and Max says he’s never been happier.’ Rita was stunned by her own reaction. She was devastated. Max was now lost to her for ever because of her fruitless obsession with George.

Months slipped away and Rita only noticed the passing of time because of the changing seasons. She grew increasingly desperate. She couldn’t face going back to the library. She couldn’t bear to admit that she had failed. Besides, working at home now suited her. She could sculpt all day in her dressing gown if she so wished and she was grateful for the privacy of her house where no one could see her miserable decline. Then, one winter day, when she was at her lowest ebb, a stranger came calling.

Rita was in her kitchen spooning condensed milk out of a tin to make fudge for Maddie’s children when there was a knock at the door. Tarka sprang up and barked excitedly. Rita was immediately irritated for she hadn’t bothered to get dressed and was still in her dressing gown and slippers with her hair in tangles. She hoped it was someone she knew well enough not to mind. When she opened the door to find an elderly man standing bent in the doorway her face flushed crimson with shame. ‘I’m so sorry to call unannounced,’ he said in a deep, fruity voice. Rita pulled her dressing gown tightly around her and swept her hair off her shoulder with her hand.

‘Not at all. What can I do for you?’ she asked, noticing at once his smart suit, navy blue cashmere coat and felt hat.

‘You are the talented sculptress from the library, are you not?’ he asked with a small smile. Rita immediately straightened up and took more interest. ‘My name is Benjamin Bradley,’ he said, extending his hand.

‘Rita Fairweather,’ she replied, shaking it. ‘Why don’t you come in?’ She closed the door behind him and led him into the kitchen. Tarka followed him curiously, wagging her tail. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ She wished she had taken the time to tidy up, the room was as messy as the beach at low tide.

‘A cup of tea would be very nice,’ he replied, clearing a space for his briefcase on the table. Rita put on the kettle and tried to find a clean teacup and spoon.