Treasures of Time (19 page)

Money had gone mad, Laura thought, nowadays. Bills came, and you looked at them, incredulous, and frequently sent them back to the electricity board or whoever with an angry letter because surely the stupid people must have made a mistake, added on an extra nought or something, it couldn’t be as much as that. But always, it turned out, it was. Oh, one knew about inflation and everything, but even so. And nice Mr Sidley at the bank had been replaced by a not at all nice young man with a horrid cockney accent who had written an unpleasant letter about the overdraft.

‘I shall have to go to Ashley Lister’s memorial service,’ she said to Nellie. ‘In London. It is a bother, but people would notice if one didn’t.’ And there would be one of those announcements in
The Times
, with a long list of names; Mrs Laura Paxton, she would say, not Mrs Hugh Paxton. She liked the sound of it: Mrs Laura Paxton. It was a name you would notice yourself, in a list, and wonder about its bearer. She would wear the navy coat and dress, not black, people don’t wear black nowadays, with a new hat if she could find something nice in Marlborough, and a silk scarf, not too bright, but not dismal either. No point in being dismal, Ashley was very old, he’d been ill for ages, his death was expected. And there would be lots of people one had lost touch with, old friends, and people who worked with Hugh at one time or another.

‘I am going to London,’ she said to Mrs Lucas, pausing at the hall mirror for a last check: yes, the hat was really rather nice. ‘A memorial service. A dear old friend who died recently. Sir Ashley Lister. He was Director of the Council of Archaeology in London before Mr Paxton, an old old friend of ours.’ Mrs Lucas, on her hands and knees dusting the skirting-board, made a non-committal noise that might, or might not be, an expression of interest and sympathy and Laura went on, ‘So sad. And while I think of it, could you be very sweet and peel us some potatoes for tonight, and the carrots. I shall be late back, and very tired I expect, it is a strain, this sort of day.’ In the train, she read the paper (the long-range weather forecast promised some hot weather; an acquaintance had died, and the daughter of someone Barbara Hamilton kept talking about was engaged; it sounded as though the electricity people might be striking again, which would be a nuisance) and then sat in her corner and watched Wiltshire give way to Berkshire and finally to the outskirts of London. Back gardens flowed by, long and thin with asphalted paths and blown washing and little glittering greenhouses and Laura, staring idly down, wondered how on earth people could live like that, cheek by jowl and with the trains hammering past. Once, the train slowed almost to a stop, and a small girl with short wiry dark hair, rather like Kate had been at that age, climbed onto a fence and waved. Laura, not waving back, thought that children looked dreadfully scruffy nowadays, all dressed alike in jeans and those anorak things, even quite nice children, the children of people one knew; she thought of a little tweed coat with a velvet collar that Kate had had from Harrods, and thence, for a while, of Kate herself, to whom she had spoken last night on the phone. Kate had been terse and unforthcoming and sounded as though she might have a cold. ‘Why are you sniffing?’ Laura had said, ‘have you got a cold?’ and Kate had said mmn, she supposed she might have, and actually she had a bit of a headache and maybe she’d go to bed early. ‘Nellie has had a touch of’flu,’ Laura had said with reproof. ‘But she’s better now, and luckily neither Mrs Lucas nor I seem to have caught it. I should take some aspirin.’ She is a bit wrapped up in herself, she thought, like all the young. As though
they
had problems; then, there are no problems, if only one knew it.

At Paddington, she took a taxi; extravagant, since she had plenty of time, but so much nicer. Then, of course, she was early at the church and had to stroll in the nearby park until there was a respectable flow of people going up the steps. Inside, she looked around with interest, and exchanged smiles – appropriately muted smiles – with one or two people she knew. There was old Lady Lister, very doddery poor thing, with what must be the son and daughter-in-law, and the grandchildren. And there was Paul Summers and the Sadlers and any number of other people from the archaeological world. There was a big congregation; a long life, many connections. Men in dark suits, looking not quite comfortable; women in hats and coats or suits they did not often wear. More women than men, oddly.

The service began. They were invited to pray for the soul of the departed. Laura sank gracefully to her knees (the woman next to her flumped down awkwardly, missing the hassock and scraping her chair on the stone floor; you can always tell the regular from the ceremonial church-goer) and recommended her old friend – no, acquaintance really, one hadn’t actually known him all that well – to God. ‘May he rest in peace’ she prayed. She did not really know what was meant by that, and would not have wanted to enquire too far. Religion, after all, was meant to be a matter of comfort and solace, not something that raised awkward questions. She had always thought it very silly, the way people torment themselves about having faith or not having it, or worry away at what is implied by this, that or the other, or make a great fuss about switching churches. In fact, Laura had often thought that she would have liked to be a Catholic; she had always felt an affinity with those big busy cool churches abroad, the smell of incense, obsequious priests, candles. Even with the ghastly statues and pictures. But one had been brought up Anglican, and the processes of change would have been a great bother, and anyway one didn’t feel all that strongly about it.

‘Look after him,’ she prayed, ‘because he was a nice old man and actually he was very helpful to Hugh, years ago, he was on the appointing Board for the Directorship and Hugh always said he must have spoken out for him because David Spears and Russell Twining were both against him, and he mightn’t have got it if Ashley hadn’t been on his side. May he not have suffered much; may he have departed in peace. David Spears is dead now too, of course; Russell Twining is a Professor somewhere or other, one sees his name sometimes, he had a beastly overbearing wife…’ She opened her eyes and observed, for a moment, the officiating clergyman, his profile to the congregation, working his way now through the ramifications of Ashley Lister’s career. A glorious vase of lilies by the pulpit, not arums either, but the nice ones, madonnas and regale and turk’s cap. ‘Thank You,’ said Laura, ‘for the long and useful life of Thy servant Ashley Lister.’ She rose to her feet, and at the same time unobtrusively shifted her chair a couple of inches to the left; her neighbour on the other side, a rather fat man, had been sticking one hip into her for the last five minutes, and there was a good deal of the service yet to go.

She sang a hymn; she sat and listened to Lessons read by various people selected to represent the different staging-posts in Ashley Lister’s life. Somebody spoke about Ashley as a person and somebody else about him as an archaeologist. A choir sang. A string quartet played some Brahms: a secular touch that aroused Laura’s mistrust in the first place, though after a minute or two she decided it was a rather nice idea. Along with the rest of the congregation, she relaxed a little for the duration of the piece and looked around her, noting more familiar faces. Once, she caught her neighbour, the stout man, glancing covertly sideways at her, staring almost; he was very dark, the hand that lay on his knee sunburnt, the knee itself trousered in a style that Laura, also covertly inspecting, decided was definitely not English. Someone foreign. Ashley would have known quite a lot of foreigners, of course. She looked firmly ahead, to dismiss the sideways gaze (not that it wasn’t just a bit flattering), assuming a musically appreciative expression.

The quartet ended. A further prayer, another offering from the choir, and the service was over. With a little outbreak of rustling and murmuring, the congregation prepared to leave. Laura’s female neighbour, she of the uncertain kneeling technique, put on her gloves and said, ‘Really very nice, just what Ashley would have liked, I’m sure.’ Laura smiled agreement. They moved sideways into the aisle, caught now in the general slow-moving exit. Laura found herself alongside her other neighbour. Propelled by the crowd, he accidentally jostled her. ‘Pardon,’ he said, and now she looked him full in the face. A rather jowly face, with unshaven look (constitutional, probably); swarthy (yes, certainly foreign); a tie that offended Laura’s fastidious eye.

Something vaguely, distantly, disconcertingly reminiscent.

And now he too was alerted. Puzzled. Confusion bloomed into recognition.

‘Lola!’

‘Laura,’ she said, thrown off her guard, ‘Laura Paxton. I’m sorry, I can’t quite…’

‘Laura – of course! Carlos. Carlos Fuego.’ He took her hand in his, in both his, she thought for an embarrassed moment he was going to kiss her. ‘So many years! So many, many years! And as beautiful as ever, Laura.’

Larks singing, above Charlie’s Tump; a very pleasurable gush of something or other every time one set eyes on him; boredom, Hugh wrapped up in the dig, blind and deaf to anything else; brown Spanish eyes – admiring, proposing; twigs and bits of stone under one’s back; the thing oddly enhanced by panicky anticipation of discovery.

Oh God, she thought. Him. She forced a smile. Made noises of surprise and pleasure. They moved together up the aisle. Gracious, Laura was thinking, how ever could one have… So overweight now, and looking years older than… well, than one does oneself. Yes, she said, at Danehurst still, with my sister, you remember my sister I expect. And he was saying the right, tactful things about Hugh, standing aside now, as they reached the door, to shepherd her solicitously through the crowd, through the porch, out into the sunlight. Had he always spoken such perfect English? He was very high up now in Spain, it would seem from what he said, had done well. His eyes were not suggestive and brown any more, but black and sharp. They were a little disconcerting, turned full on you.

No, she found herself saying, no actually as it happens I’m not doing anything for lunch, what a nice idea…

‘Well,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘Here’s to a most agreeable reunion, Laura.’

He had talked about his wife (rather pointedly, one felt), produced coloured photos of his children (something a bit vulgar about
coloured
snaps), asked after Kate. He had taken her to a very nice restaurant. He had talked entertainingly of this and that, plied her with wine, been a charming host. Of course there was no question of one feeling at all, well, at all attracted any more, but there was no denying he was pleasant company. Laura, graciously, mellowed.

‘I suppose you knew Ashley well, Carlos. I thought the service was awfully well done. More women than men there-odd. Why should Ashley have known more women than men?’

‘I shouldn’t think he did. It is merely that women have a longer expectation of life.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Laura. ‘How peculiar. Are you sure?’

‘Not peculiar at all, my dear Laura. A fact, that’s all. You are tougher.’ He grinned at her; there was a wink of gold tooth, rather too much gold tooth. What nonsense, Laura thought, I bet he’s just made that up on the spur of the moment.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t feel tough at all, personally.’

‘Nor do you look it. You are a very handsome woman, Laura.’

‘Thank you,’ said Laura primly. She looked down at her plate; Carlos’s eyes were very penetrating, and they were at this point making undoubted reference, which she thought unfair. That wasn’t done.

No one else ever had. But of course they had been English, the others. The three others; let’s not exaggerate. One had bumped into them, from time to time, over the years, and there had always been the most gentlemanly discretion. Not a word or glance capable of misinterpretation. Of course, one had always had very good taste in friends and in… well, in people one knew well.

‘You had excellent breasts,’ said Carlos. ‘Very English. Like apples.’

Laura choked. She took a gulp of wine, hunted feverishly for her napkin and dabbed her lips.