Voices in Summer (8 page)

He tried to smile. He said evenly, ‘There's nothing I wanted more. But it wouldn't work. I couldn't look after you. I have too many commitments, I'd be away so much. You need your mother. For the time being, you should be with her. It's better that way.'

She set her mouth as though, faced with the inevitable, she were gathering courage to accept it. She turned from him, and once more they walked.

'You'll come back to see me,' Alec told her. 'We'll go to Glenshandra again next summer. You could maybe try your luck with the salmon this year.'

'What's going to happen to Deepbrook?'

‘I suppose I shall sell it. There's not much point hanging on to it if your mother isn't there.'

'And you?'

‘I shall stay in Islington.'

She said painfully, 'My bedroom in London . . .'

'It's still your room. It always will be. . . .'

'It isn't that. It's just some books I'd like to take with me. I've . . . I've written down the names.' She took her hand from her pocket and brought out a piece of lined paper torn from an exercise book. He took it from her and unfolded it. He read,

The Secret Garden

Adventure of the World

Gone with the Wind

There were other titles, but for some reason he couldn't go on reading them.

'Of course.' He spoke gruffly, pushing the piece of paper deep into the pocket of his own overcoat. 'Is . . . is there anything else?'

'No. Just the books.'

‘I don't know if your mother told you, but I'm going to drive you both to the airport to catch your plane. I'll bring the books with me then. So if you do think of any more things, let me know.'

She shook her head. 'There's nothing else.'

Now, the mist had turned to rain. It beaded her hair and the rough surface of her navy-blue coat. They had rounded the field and were headed back towards the school buildings. They left the grass and walked on gravel, their footsteps crunching. There did not seem to be anything else to talk about. At the foot of the steps that led up to the imposing front door, she stopped and turned once more to face him.

She said, ‘I have to go and get ready for games. You'd better not come in.'

He said, 'I'll say goodbye now. I won't say goodbye at the airport.' 'Goodbye, then.'

Her hands remained firmly deep in her coat pockets. He put his hand under her chin and lifted up her face. 'Gabriel.'

'Goodbye.'

He stooped and kissed her cheek. For the first time that afternoon she looked straight at him. For an instant their eyes met, and hers were filled with neither tears nor reproach. Then she was gone, walking away from him up the steps, beneath the pretentious colonnade, through the door.

They left for America the following Thursday, his wife and his child, on the evening flight to New York. As he had promised, Alec drove them to the airport, and after their flight had been called, and he had said goodbye, he made his way up to the observation lounge. It was a wet, dark evening, with much low cloud, and he stood, staring through the streaming glass, waiting for their plane to take off. On time the great jet thundered down the runway, lights flashing through the gloom. He watched it lift off, but seconds later it was lost to sight, swallowed into the clouds. He stayed until the sound of the engines died into the darkness. Only then did he turn away, making the long walk across the polished floor towards the head of the escalator. There were people everywhere, but he did not see them, and no head turned to watch him go. For the first time in his life he knew how it felt to be a nonentity, a failure.

He drove himself back to his empty house. Bad news travels with the speed of light and by now it was common knowledge that his marriage was finished, that Erica had left him for a rich American and had taken Gabriel with her. This, in some measure, was a relief, because it meant that Alec didn't have to tell people, but he shied from social contact and sympathy, and although Tom Boulderstone had asked him around to Campden Hill for supper this evening, he had refused the invitation, and Tom had understood.

He was used to being alone, but now his solitude had a new dimension. He went upstairs, and the bedroom, stripped of Erica's possessions, seemed empty, unfamiliar. He had a shower and changed, and then went downstairs again, poured himself a drink, and took it into the sitting room. Without Erica's pretty ornaments, without any flowers, it looked desolate, and he drew the curtains and told himself that tomorrow he would stop off at the florist and buy himself a potted plant.

It was nearly half past eight, but he was not hungry. He was too exhausted, too drained, for hunger. Later, he would go and investigate, and see what Mrs Abney had concocted and left in the oven for his supper. Later. Now, he switched on the television and collapsed in front of it, his drink in his hand, his chin sunk on his chest.

He stared at the flickering screen. After a moment or two he realized that he was watching a documentary, a programme dealing with the problems of marginal farming. To illustrate the problem, the presenters had chosen a farm in Devon. There was a shot of sheep grazing the rocky slopes of Dartmoor . . . the camera panned down the hill to the farmhouse . . . the lush green slopes of the lower land . . .

It was not Chagwell, but it was a place very similar. The film had been shot in summertime. He saw the blue skies, the high white clouds, their shadows racing down the hillside, to where sunlight sparkled on the waters of a bubbling trout river.

Chagwell.

The past is another country.
A long time ago Alec had been conceived, born, brought up in that country; his roots lay deep in that rich red Devon soil. But over the years, diverted by his own success, his own ambitions, and the demands of family life, he had almost totally lost touch.

Chagwell. His father had died, and Brian and his wife, Jenny, now ran the farm between them. In the space of seven years Jenny had borne Brian five blond, freckle-faced children, and the old house bulged with their pets and prams and bicycles and toys;

Erica had no time for Brian and Jenny. They were not her sort of people. Only twice during the whole of their married life had Alec taken her to Chagwell, but the two occasions had been so uncomfortable and so little fun for everybody concerned that, as if by mutual consent, they had never been repeated. Communication dwindled to an exchange of cards at Christmas and the odd letter, but Alec had not seen Brian for five years or more.

Five years. It was too long. Bad news travels with the speed of light, but it would not yet have reached Chagwell. Brian would have to be told about the pending divorce. Alec would write tomorrow, losing no time, for it was unthinkable that Brian should hear about the break-up of his brother's marriage from some other person.

Or he could telephone.

The telephone, at his side, began to ring. Alec reached out and picked up the receiver. 'Yes?'

'Alec'

‘Yes.'

'Brian here.'

Brian. He was visited by a sense of blinding unreality, as though his imagination had reached out beyond the limits of his own despair. For a moment he wondered if he was going out of his mind. Automatically, he leaned forward and switched off the television. –

'Brian.'

'Who else?' He sounded his usual cheerful, breezy self, his voice as clear as a bell. For whatever reason he was calling, it was plainly not to impart bad news.

'Where are you ringing from?'

'Chagwell, of course, where else?'

Alec saw him sitting at the battered, roll-top desk in the old study at Chagwell, that dusty, book-lined room that had always been used as the farm office. He saw the piles of government forms and dog-eared files, the proud photographs of prizewinning pedigree Guernsey cows.

'You sound astonished,' said Brian.

‘It's been five years.'

'I know. Far too long. But I thought you'd like to hear a fairly surprising piece of family news. Uncle Gerald's getting married.'

Gerald. Gerald Haverstock of Tremenheere. Adm. G. J. Haverstock, C.B.E., D.S.O., D.S.C., R.N., once known as the most eligible bachelor in the Royal Navy.

'When did you hear this?'

'This morning. He rang up to tell us. Sounds over the moon. Wants us all to go the wedding.'

'When's that?'

'Weekend after next. In Hampshire.'

Gerald, finally, getting married. 'He must be sixty now.'

'Well, you know what they say, the best wine comes from old bottles.'

'Who's the bride?'

'She's called Eve Ashby. The widow of an old shipmate. It's all very suitable.'

Still, Alec found it hard to believe, for it was indeed an astounding piece of news. Gerald, of all people, the career sailor, the perpetual bachelor, yearned after by countless lovelorn ladies. Gerald, with whom Brian and Alec had spent one blissful summer holiday, the only youngsters in a wholly adult house party. Running wild on the Cornish beaches and playing cricket on the lawn in front of the house, they had yet been treated – for the first time in their lives – as grown-ups. Allowed to stay up for dinner, drink wine, take the sailing dinghy out on their own. Gerald became their hero, and they followed his meteoric career with proprietary pride.

Gerald had been best man at so many weddings that it took some imagination to see him as the bridegroom.

'Are you going to the wedding?' Alec asked.

'Yes, we all are. Kids and all. Gerald wants the lot of us. And you as well. It's not that far from Deepbrook. You could drive over in the afternoon. I don't suppose Erica would particulary want to come, but perhaps you and Gabriel . . .?'

He paused, waiting for a reaction to this suggestion. Alec's mouth was suddenly dry. He saw again the transatlantic jet, taking off, lifting, disappearing into the darkness of night and cloud. She's gone. Gabriel's gone.

After a bit, in a totally different voice, Brian said, 'Is everything all right, old boy?'

'Why do you ask?'

'Well, to tell you the truth, the last few days, I've been thinking about you . . . had the feeling you were a bit under the weather. In fact, I've been meaning to ring you. Had this urge to have a word. Telling you about Gerald's wedding was just a good excuse to pick up the telephone.'

Had this urge to have a word.

They had, as boys, been very close. The barriers of distance, the passing years, the two incompatible wives, the lack of communication had not destroyed their closeness. They had always been in touch, linked by a strong, invisible cord of blood and birth. Perhaps this unexpected telephone call, for whatever reason it had been made, was a sort of lifeline.

He clutched at it. He said, 'Yes, everything's wrong.’ and told Brian. It did not take very long.

When he was finished, Brian only said, ‘I see.'

‘I was going to write tomorrow and tell you. Or telephone . . . I'm sorry I didn't get around to telling you before.'

'That's all right, old boy. Look. I'm coming up to London next week for the fatstock show at Smithfield. Would you like to meet?'

No comments, no postmortems, no unnecessary sympathy. 'More than anything,' Alec told his brother. 'Come to my club and I'll give you lunch.'

They fixed on a day and time.

'And what shall I tell Gerald?' Brian asked.

'Tell him I'll be at his wedding. I wouldn't miss it for all the tea in China.'

Brian rang off. Slowly Alec replaced his own receiver. The past is another country.

Images filled his mind, not only of Chagwell, but now, thinking of Gerald, of Tremenheere as well. The old stone house at the very end of Cornwall, where palm trees grew, and camellias and verbena, and scented white jasmine covered the sides of the glass houses in the walled garden.

Chagwell and Tremenheere. They were his roots and his identity. He was Alec Haverstock and he would cope. The world had not come to an end. Gabriel had gone; parting from her had been the worst, but now the worst was over. He had touched bottom and he could only start coming up again.

He stood up and, carrying his empty glass, went through to the kitchen to look for something to eat.

ISLINGTON

It was five o'clock before Laura finally reached home. The breeze had dropped and Abigail Crescent drowsed sleepily in the golden sunshine of late afternoon. For once, the street was almost deserted. In all likelihood, her neighbours were sitting in their tiny gardens or had taken their children off to neighbourhood parks for the solace of grass underfoot and shady trees overhead. Only an old lady, with a shopping trolley and an ancient mongrel on a leash, was making her way down the pavement. As Laura drew up in front of her house, even they disappeared, like rabbits down a burrow, descending steps into some basement flat.

She gathered up the day's shopping, her handbag, and her dog and got out of the car, crossed the pavement, and went up the stairs to her front door. She always had to remind herself that it was her own front door every time she found her latchkey and turned the lock. Because the house, which she had lived in for nine months, was still not totally familiar. She was not yet in tune with its moods nor its reactions. It was Alec's home, and it had been Erica's home, and Laura always entered it tentatively, unable to suppress the sensation that she was trespassing upon another person's property.

Now, the warm silence pressed in, thick as a fog. From below, from Mrs Abney's domain, came no sound. Perhaps she had taken herself out or was still asleep. Gradually the humming of the refrigerator in the kitchen made itself heard. Then a clock ticking. Yesterday Laura had bought roses, filled a jug with them. Today their scent, from the sitting room, lay heavy and sweet.

I have come home. This is my home.

It was not a large house. Mrs Abney's basement and, above it, three stories – two rooms at each level and none of them particularly spacious. Here, the cramped hall and stairway; on one side the sitting room, on the other the kitchen, which also served as dining space. Above, the main bedroom and bathroom and Alec's dressing room, doubling as a study. Above again – with dormer windows and sloping ceilings – the attics. A nominal guest room, usually stacked with suitcases and an overflow of furniture, and the nursery, which had once been Gabriel's. That was all.