Wish Her Safe at Home (9 page)

For various reasons I passed a largely sleepless night. In the first place I had fevered, wakeful dreams of having—perhaps—God willing—almost acquired a new family. Roger and Celia Allsop wanted three more children; which on the one hand was a nice notion but on the other a horribly disturbing one. I tried to concentrate on the nice part though. I calculated that by the time I was seventy those four children would either be in their twenties or approaching them. By the time I was eighty they would probably have children of their own. What would they call me? Aunt? Aunty Rachel? I’d be such a sweet old lady. They’d come to me with all their troubles, things they couldn’t speak about at home. Aunty Rachel was such a sport! You could always rely on
her
. Her house was such a hive of activity as well, an ever-open door, people coming and going at all times, and everything such fun! Not merely that. She was always so generous. Dear old soul. Nobody quite like her.

My hectic imagination pictured birthday parties, mainly but not exclusively for the children: Christmases, merry traditional Christmases such as I had seldom known: for the most part it had been just my mother and me, or Sylvia and me. I saw myself doing a little song-and-dance routine, the centre of a clamorous admiring crowd,

Sometimes I think I’ve found my hero,

But it’s a queer romance;

Come on, big boy—ten cents a dance,

my pretty, twinkling feet still as pretty and twinkling as ever, my ankles just as slim, my footwear just as elegant. “Oh, I would never let any man drink champagne out of
my
slipper! No matter how he begged. Only think, my dears, of how—for ever after—it would
squelch
!” I would turn into such a character.

And there’d also be weddings. By then I wouldn’t mind the thought of weddings; I’d be able to flirt with all the handsome young men—and even,
by then
, with some of the older ones too—and there’d be nothing but sheer wickedness and pleasure and hilarity.

But at some time after four o’clock I fell into a different dream and in this dream Roger—naked—was coming up the stairs towards me. He was dark and didn’t look at all like Roger but I knew that it was he. I was waiting at the top of the staircase in a long white garden-party frock and I was aware without any feeling of surprise that
I
had changed as well: I was younger and more beautiful.

Yet the stairs seemed to go on forever—there must have been a hundred flights. It was as though I dwelt in some impossibly high tower, almost as unscalable on the inside as it was on the out. And I became afraid that he would take so long to reach me that all my loveliness would fade. I would not merely grow old but ancient.

Haggard...

The lovely dream became a nightmare—a nightmare directed by Hitchcock but without his penchant for romantic ends.

And when I awoke from it—although, thank heaven, not staying awake for long—I felt disoriented. Drugged. Drained. I tried, as an antidote, to recapture the way it had felt to hold Thomas in the garden.

Unsuccessfully. For some reason what I recaptured was the way it had felt, less than a year before, when my periods had stopped coming.

Useless. Unused.

Wasted.

I recaptured how—when the realization had finally sunk in—I had cried on and off all through one rainy Sunday afternoon. Sylvia had thought I was crazy.

* * *

But as if all
that
hadn’t been enough there was another theme which had run through my restlessness: the book I was going to write: the idea of gradually getting to know another life—a fine, exemplary and altruistic life—of painstakingly removing coats of paint, layers of wallpaper, and working my way in...
of
feeling
my way in, with a wonderful and enriching instinct for the creation of links. I visualized myself, here too, as being on the verge of a new relationship, one equally important in its very different way. Indeed, the two themes almost merged. It struck me at some point that, after all, the naked man on the stair might not have been Roger. It might have been Horatio. I was in that midworld between wakefulness and sleep where such a notion really didn’t seem enormously farfetched.

The face of the man had become a blur. Perhaps this was strange, since my own face remained so vividly in mind. It was the face of Scarlett O’Hara.

Of Vivien Leigh.

And when I finally awoke in the morning—having something as tangible as that to hold on to—it was the image of myself at the top of the stairs which I remembered best. Vivien Leigh in a low-cut white crinoline, with frills at the shoulders and a sash at the waist. Kittenish but strong.

When i
finally
awoke, although I now felt thoroughly refreshed and rejuvenated, I was also mildly annoyed that it was half-past-nine—and I had overslept by two hours.

But all the same I didn’t hurry. Things had to be done nicely; especially so from now on. My breakfast table with its single rose. My lightly boiled egg, my thin crisp toast, my little pot of real coffee. The housework, my warm and scented bath, the careful brushing of my hair. The application of my creams and makeup. None of it was wasted time.

Far from it indeed. Even while I dusted I looked about me for things that
he
might recognize, for segments of a shared experience.

There was the very shape of the rooms, for instance: the corners, the alcoves, positioning of the windows. The moulding on the ceilings—
that
he would have known, might have gazed at, as two centuries later I myself did, tracing its convolutions with attentive eyes. The mantelpieces—
this
in the sitting room, say. Yes, that was original. And the fireplace. Right here he might have stood, surely did stand, arms resting on the mantel as mine now did, one polished boot upon the andiron, eyes staring dreamily into the mesmerizing, picture-making flames
.
He had been twenty-one when first he came to this house. I saw the back of his tilted head, its thick healthily gleaming hair, his broad shoulders and narrow waist, the long sturdy legs, the shining leather boots. I imagined, underneath the fitted coat, the play of muscle down that lean back.

Or in 1781 would the fashion still have been for periwigs and shoes? I wasn’t sure. Yet details such as this could very easily be checked.

And whilst cracking the shell on my breakfast egg, I had known the chances were good he must often have eaten a boiled egg. His bread would have been coarser, his coffee from perhaps a different bean, but the taste of a softly boiled egg (mine was free-range, very fresh) must have been the same then as it was now.

So with practically everything I did I was preparing myself to see things and feel things—taste, smell, touch and hear them—as nearly as I could in the manner that
he
might have done. I loved every minute of it. It wasn’t just an exercise. Time travel, I decided, cried out to become a regular pastime. I should campaign for it. “Infinitely more liberating,” I would call from the rooftops, “than all this nonsense about the burning of your bras!”

It was almost twelve when I left home—though not to scale the rooftops. I had a short list of household things I had to buy. But first I went into a stationer’s.

There I looked at the ledgers, the account books, the minute books. How beautifully bound they were, how exquisitely tooled! None of the plain exercise books (no, again, “exercise” seemed
completely
wrong) came anywhere near the same standard. Yet there was one, the most expensive, which certainly gave off a nice feel. But was it thick enough? And weren’t the lines a shade too close? I replaced it with reluctance. It had to be just right.

I went to Smith’s. Once more I hesitated. I made a whistle-stop tour of the city. In the restaurant of a department store I ate a ham salad with a piece of French bread, drank a glass of orange juice, and reviewed the possibilities. In the end I went back to my starting point and bought the volume I had liked originally.

With that decision taken—no, with the book actually bought—I felt a great deal better.

It was a less agonizing matter, marginally, to find the best writing implement. I had thought about a dip pen, being the closest thing to a quill, but memories of how the nibs had so often scratched lumps out of my books at school—and left unsightly and infuriating blobs—directed me towards the ballpoints. I already had several but for this enterprise I wanted something new. And more costly.

I also bought a giant pad of scribbling paper—and a notebook for my handbag.

Then I went to the library, took out a book on Bath and one on Bristol, another on eighteenth-century social history and a fourth on costume. I was glad the woman with the glasses wasn’t there.

As I returned home, feeling thoroughly well satisfied with my purchases and borrowings, a light rain was falling. This was unimportant. The gardens would be refreshed and perhaps there’d be a rainbow. En route I popped into the grocer’s, bought quickly and extravagantly, without my usual comparison of quantities and prices, and didn’t even stop to count my change. When the assistant at the cheese counter complained about the weather I replied, “But aren’t you aware, you naughty and ungrateful man, that where you see clouds upon the hills you soon will see crowds of daffodils?” and even though we were nearer August than April I thought it seemed a jaunty, wise and almost witty thing to say, and indicative too of the springtime which had belatedly come tripping into my own heart. And the man said, “You’re spot on, madam. I only wish that more folks were a bit like you,” and I felt like a combination of Wordsworth, Al Jolson and Walter Huston, only luckier than all three of them, and then I remembered that Huston was connected with “September Song” not “April Showers” but this was also applicable in its own way and I found myself singing it for the remainder of my journey home, not loudly, yet evidently loudly enough to make one or two people glance at me in amused surprise. Well, let them, I thought.

And these few vintage years I’ll share with you.

These vintage years

I’ll share

With you.

And at the same time I was careful not to step on any of the cracks. “Bears,” I exclaimed merrily—being practically impossible to hoodwink and simultaneously doing one of my nifty little dances, nifty
and
artistic, “bears, look at me walking in just the squares!” I believe that on the second occasion somebody actually heard me—yes, and saw me, too! Oh, Lordy Moses!

I returned to the contemplation of my vintage years and of the way I was going to spend them.

Yet I forgot to look out for the rainbow. That was slightly negligent.

I was still singing, however, as for the second time that day I dusted the table beneath one of the windows in the sitting room. It was here I would sit to write my novel.

I took the book from its bag and placed it on the table; wondered if I should put back the cloth to protect a highly polished surface. But, no, the colours would clash: opposing shades of red. I minutely corrected the book’s angle; laid the new ballpoint pen beside it; brought over the Anglepoise and my Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (I was so glad that I had Chambers!); also the scribbling pad and my four acquisitions from the library. Lastly, Mr. Wallace’s
Life
.

As an afterthought I fetched the tiny vase which I normally kept for my breakfast table and my supper tray and placed it carefully on a doily; tomorrow I would set a fresh pink rose in it.

“There!” I said as I stood back and surveyed the whole arrangement. “All for you!” I glanced humorously towards the fireplace. “I trust it meets with your approval, sir?”

I felt I ought to drop a curtsy but decided against it. No, really, that would be too absurd.

Yet then I laughed. Where was the harm in a small amount of absurdity? One had no wish to be solemn. Serious but not solemn. I had the feeling that Mr. Gavin, like Mr. Darcy, could possibly err on the side of sobriety. A little playfulness might be precisely what he needed.

I dropped him a rather graceful curtsy.

Irreverent yet full of fun.

And for the moment I thought of myself as Elizabeth Bennett not Anne Barnetby. I didn’t feel Miss Barnetby would ever have displayed such charming liveliness.

It was four o’clock. I had my cup of tea and petit beurre. I moved my armchair just a foot or so closer to the fireplace. They said that it was better for the carpet, to shift your furniture occasionally.

No television that night. No novel. No newspaper. I had embarked on my research.

Again I slept poorly. Today of all days I should like to have felt at my very best. But never mind:
c’est la vie
. No doubt there was a purpose. I got up earlier than usual. Broke with tradition and went to the market
before
breakfast to buy myself some flowers, especially my single pink rose. (
His
single pink rose.) It was so lovely to be out in the freshness of the morn.

I had intended to be sitting at my “writing desk” by ten. But in fact I exceeded this modest ambition. I was seated about twenty minutes early; had already dropped the mantelpiece a graceful, laughing curtsy. Probably this would become my signature start to each day’s composition. A reminder of the need for levity.

But although ready for work so comfortably ahead of time I was up again and going for my hat and gloves before my watch said even ten o’clock.

This was
not
a bad omen. Nor, despite the fact I hadn’t yet thought up my truly perfect opening line, was it in any way an admission of failure.

No, I had suddenly decided that I needed one more thing. It was a signal of victory rather than of vanquishment.

I could have gone to Mr. Lipton’s shop the previous day; the thought had certainly occurred to me. But I’d felt scared. Now I saw timidity should play no role in any area of this enterprise. (And it was shameful I should even have to remind myself:
I wonder who’s kissing her now, I wonder who’s showing her how
...
!) If Mr. Lipton didn’t still have that portrait, tucked away in some dark corner and patiently awaiting me exactly as the book had been, and if he couldn’t remember or didn’t know to whom he had sold it...
well then, too bad: at least I could still advertise. And if my advertisements were to prove no more successful...
then again too bad: at least I still had the Adam fireplace and my intuitive vision of a friendly dark-haired young man gazing reflectively into the flames. I had seen him there again this morning, just as vividly as yesterday. I even had the distinct sensation, uncanny but in no way frightening, that one day he might actually turn round.

I found the shop without difficulty. Miss Eversley’s directions had been entirely lucid. I saw the portrait in the window.

I laughed out loud. I laughed right there, standing on the pavement, a spontaneous burst of laughter that was partly the effect of my ecstatic recognition of
him
and partly an aid to his more sober recognition of
me
: an easy, quite informal greeting, in mature contrast to that clash of cymbals and full celestial chorus which as a girl I had so often imagined would accompany the arrival of my one true love: would announce to the stilled and awestruck world, as well as to our own two selves, the eternal importance of that first meeting of eyes across the crowded room or shop or station concourse.

Nor was this all. For partly, too, my laughter was a message to the passersby that even when you momentarily lost your faith you were reprimanded in the most lovingly gentle and
generous
way.

You see, I had told myself, hadn’t I—and without too much conviction—that the picture might be awaiting me in some dark corner
exactly as the book had been
? But had I forgotten already? The book had been awaiting me under strong electric light and at virtually the centre of an eye-level shelf and even, very slightly, jutting out!

And then I had also said to myself, quite doubtfully again, “Mmm, a whole eighteen months since the bungalow was cleared...
?” (Because the deacon who had given me Miss Eversley’s address had told me of the date of her employer’s death.) But the bookseller had said, “I’d have sworn I hadn’t seen one of these in years!” and even after that I hadn’t understood. Dear Lord. I was tempted not merely to throw back my head and laugh out loud upon the pavement, amongst those absorbed and frowning shoppers, but even to go down on my knees in front of them, inadequately to express my thanks and to appeal for God’s forgiveness.

What’s more he was just as I’d expected—with strong clean-shaven features and a faint smile which was already captivating but, yes, would surely grow to be far more so; and with a proud determined chin, broad shoulders and the look of height.

His portrait had obviously been painted when he was in his late twenties or early thirties.

And it was just as Miss Eversley had said: superficially quite sombre—a fact which would make it all the more exciting when those vital grey-green eyes looked straight out at you whichever way you moved—or, at any rate, whichever way
I
moved—as though, almost as though, now that the pair of us had finally come together he had no intention whatsoever of allowing me to get away again.

(“Again”? Why had that word so naturally presented itself? Was my subconscious trying to tell me something? Was
he
trying to tell me something? And, anyway, hadn’t I already guessed? Besides...
How would I have
known
—known even from the pavement and even in spite of the sombreness—that his eyes were grey-green?)

I rushed into the shop.

I saw a man standing by the counter. He was portly, with a drooping moustache.

“That picture in the window,” I gasped. It was just as if I had run there all the way from home. “How much is it?” Irrelevant, unnecessary question.

“Madam, I don’t work here. You’ll have to ask the proprietor.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Just then Mr. Lipton himself came through a door at the back. He was small, thin and worried-looking, and wore a brown overall. I repeated my question.

His eyes screwed up in a smile that seemed oddly at variance with his tired expression. “The unknown cavalier?” he asked.

“Oh dear, is that what you call him?” Unknown indeed! But on the other hand I liked the thought of “cavalier” with its suggestion of laughter and of gallantry. “Yes, yes,” I cried.

“Eight pounds to you, madam.”

“Oh—
thank
you!” I said.

I paid by cheque, not because I hadn’t got the money on me, and not that I could ever have forgotten such a momentous date as this but because I wanted to have it actually inscribed there on the counterfoil—a monument in black and white—today I met Horatio!

Today I met my destiny.

Met him again!

“What’s your initial, Mr. Lipton?”

“Oh, just make it out to Lipton’s,” he said. “
My
name is Guthrie. I work here part-time.”

While I wrote the cheque Mr. Guthrie took the painting from the window.

“Well, I can see he’s going to a good home,” he remarked.

“I think you must be psychic.”

“How so, madam?”

“Just your talking in that way about home. Because you’re right, you know. Today’s the day he’s coming home!”

Yet I left it at that. He didn’t look the gossipy kind but even so it was better not to say too much. People could still be amazingly judgmental.

“We’re really going to miss him.” After Mr. Guthrie had looked quickly at the cheque and also written on the back he spoke directly to the portrait. “This place, old man, won’t ever be the same without you!”

I was torn between slightly resenting this easy familiarity (but after all, I supposed, eighteen months did undoubtedly confer on you a position of some privilege) and feeling amused and rather proud that such a display of bonhomie could only have been evoked by a natural propensity on the part of its recipient to inspire friendship.

But, again, the sheet of brown paper which wasn’t even new—and the length of hairy string which had been picked up off the floor—seemed wholly out of keeping with the significance of the occasion.

“No, no,” I exclaimed, sharply. “Don’t shut him in! Only imagine! What a feeling of imprisonment and claustrophobia!”

“Madam?”

“I saw a film once. A woman was buried alive. They finally got to her in time, but—”

“I’d say then, madam, she must definitely have been one of the luckier ones.” Mr. Guthrie’s tone sounded puzzled as well as amused—
amused
!—yet then he gave his crinkled, kindly smile. “You’re really quite sure you wish to take this with you? We could deliver it tomorrow morning before ten.”

This
?
It
?

And as though I could now bear to be separated from him for twenty-four minutes, let alone twenty-four hours!

I turned to the customer with the droopy moustache who was now sifting through bric-a-brac at a nearby table. “I wonder if you’d be kind enough to hail me a taxi?”

I had asked it with considerable charm and he didn’t seem to mind—in any case he had something of the air of a doorman—but Mr. Guthrie made me feel I might have taken a liberty; he himself hurried outside. I apologized to the customer and made some humorous remark about gentlemen vying for a damsel’s favour. “Do you think I ought to offer
him
a tip? I would certainly have given you one.”

We agreed not, however, and even when Mr. Guthrie had to come back and
phone
for a cab I received a further small shake of the head—the customer was very nice. They both were.

And less than fifteen minutes later I was back home. In the taxi I’d briefly wondered about putting Mr. Gavin (I should have to decide not only on how to address him but even on how to refer to him) in a spot where we should see each other last thing at night and as soon as I awoke in the morning. But I think I already knew what had to be his rightful position—indeed, what he practically
demanded
as such. Over the mantelpiece, of course, in the sitting room. And, yes, the very moment he’d been hung there by the eventually cheerful cabby—who by then had most definitely received a tip and a pretty large one at that (and who now advised me on the best new place for the mirror and hammered in the picture hook and accomplished the whole cumbersome transfer)—Horatio truly did seem to have come home.

* * *

Besides I couldn’t help thinking that the bedroom, although appealing in many ways, somehow wouldn’t have been
quite
the thing. Not really.

* * *

That morning by second post I received a polite though frosty letter from the bank. I was overdrawn by £15—would I please make good this deficiency as soon as possible? It came as a complete surprise. Two or three days earlier it might well have been a shock, might well have tipped me hard against the bosom of the glooms. (But not once in this kind house had I ever yet encountered
them
.) Today, though, my reaction to the news was more surprising than the news itself. I simply couldn’t have cared less. Anyway, I told myself, I had a few shares left to sell—what was all the fuss about? I felt positively gay. Defiant. I was ready to take on the world; and the world, one supposed, included bank managers. I knew that the handsome, strong-faced, utterly dependable man who had been watching thoughtfully as I read the letter would henceforth, without question, make it his job to look after me.

I laughed. My merriment was uncontainable. I had moved my chair even closer to the hearth; now I lifted my feet off the ground and hugged my knees. My eyes never wavered from his lovely face.

“But how does it
feel
...to return home after two centuries?”

My question, though, released something unexpected. Along with my exuberance—guilt! I wrung my hands. I remembered how in my heart I had criticized poor Mr. Guthrie for not recognizing the supreme importance of such a homecoming—that dear little man with his sheet of crumpled paper and his piece of grubby string.

But Mr. Guthrie’s failing was nothing as compared to mine! How had
I
reacted to this wonderful event? By dashing off to ring church bells? Fire a cannon? Buy a round of drinks in every pub across the city?
No
! It was unbelievable. I hadn’t even bought a bottle of champagne.

“But at least I can now put
that
right!” I cried. “No matter how lacking in forethought or how woefully, woefully inadequate!”

I had already leapt to my feet.

“Oh, a fig for Mr. Fitzroy and his fifteen pounds! Thank you so much for coming back to me! Thank you so much for coming home!”

I dashed out of the room, just to fetch my hat. Briefly returned to collect my handbag—and to tell him that I shouldn’t be long.

“Oh, it’s so
good
to have a man about the house!”