Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

Chapter Twenty-three

Vee intervened. She had been observing this exchange and came over to rescue me. ‘I’ve been sent to find you by Poppy. Speech time.’ Ignoring Minty, she slipped an arm round my waist and steered me expertly in the direction of the wedding cake. ‘Take no notice of her,’ she hissed. ‘All red hat and no knickers, as Grandmother would say’

‘She’s not wearing a red hat.’

‘She is mentally’

I clutched at Vee. ‘Until I saw her here I had no idea I was capable of murder.’

‘Keep it to yourself.’ Vee changed the subject skilfully by poking me in the flank. ‘I hate you for being so thin. Picture the scene at home and pity me. Everyone tucking into baked potatoes plastered with butter, and me grazing on a lettuce leaf.’ She giggled, because she was happy with her lot. ‘Have you heard from Mazarine?’

‘Of course. She couldn’t come because of an opening. Apparently another of our national traits is to economize on champagne and she warned me against it.’

Vee glanced round the guests. ‘No fear of that.’

The wedding cake was extremely pretty and different – chocolate, iced and decorated in nineteenth-century American fashion with fresh violets, roses and voile ribbon. Pure Louisa Alcott. Hands around each other’s waist, Poppy and Richard were poised to cut it.

Applause broke out as they did so and, under its cover, I whispered to Nathan, ‘Get rid of Minty. That was the deal. She was not to be here.’

Nathan looked astonished, then furious. ‘I didn’t know she was here.’ He pulled at his cuffs. ‘We’ll discuss it later.’ He stepped forward to make the speech.

Poppy’s contact lenses were making her blink. The tiny sapphire earrings I had given her swayed above her slender shoulders and she glanced frequently and lovingly at her groom. Certainly, Richard was smiling and revealing, I noticed, well-tended teeth. I had no clue what he was thinking.

Minty was at the back of the room, hugging the outer circles of guests, her dark eyes fixed hungrily on the tableau by the wedding-cake.

Who needs a family?

I tried, I tried so hard, but every so often my gaze returned to her and, while Nathan was giving the speech for our daughter, Minty stole my attention and that was, almost, the greatest sin I laid at her door.

But Minty was also watching me. Not Nathan, not Poppy or Richard, but me. Should she not have been considering her lover’s pride in his daughter, his tenderness, his public face? His words? Should she not be shuddering inwardly for having overstepped the mark? At the punishing words we had exchanged?

Should I not be concentrating on the quick rise and fall of Poppy’s breath? On the way Richard was holding her hand? Should I not be utterly focused on my daughter’s future?

Minty and I had arrived at a point where we were objects of fascination to each other. We had infiltrated each other’s bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and we were the shadows that been cast, deep and inky, over each other’s life.

Nathan made a joke, and the audience laughed. Poppy turned her head, and her earrings sparkled in the soft, radiant light. Richard looked down at her and sent her a private smile. Here we go, it said.

Nathan made another joke, and laughter rippled through the audience. The guests shifted. Vee slid her arm round my waist. ‘Rose, please don’t look so sad.’

I was conscious of a vast disappointment. Surely after all the suffering, mine and Nathan’s, the misunderstandings, the painful decisions, it should add up to something greater than a mundane preoccupation with the other woman.

I closed my eyes. However bloody, however hard, I knew I must pull the darkness and anger out of myself, and toss them away.

Yet as Minty and I covertly watched each other, I experienced a steady creep of pity. We all used others, hurt them badly, betrayed them. More often than not, the struggle to treat the world and others with care just did not succeed. I had been guilty of dark preoccupations, and I had almost forgotten that there was warmth. Passion, too, for life, food, sun, knowledge and other landscapes through which to travel.

My thumbnail bit into my finger. At twenty I could not have stood here and reflected in such a manner, nor at thirty. I would not have possessed the words. But today? In the presence of my children, it seemed the only thing left was to be generous with love and pity. To struggle to be generous.

Exhausted, I turned my attention to Nathan. He was funny and brief, and avoided the obvious pitfall of mentioning our marriage. Conjuring the best of himself for his daughter, the gestures, the timed pauses, the smiles were perfect. They were meant for Poppy, there was no doubt about that, and I melted at the tributes he paid her.

‘Such a good speaker,’ murmured a guest. ‘So sweet about the couple.’

Nathan wound up. ‘“There is no more lovely, friendly, charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.” Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know who said that but it doesn’t matter. What matters is the sentiment. Let us raise our glasses…’

There was applause and, tearstained and electric, Poppy whirled towards her father. Looking a lot less fresh, less crisp, than when they arrived, the guests shifted, re-formed and continued to drink enormous quantities of champagne until it was time to leave, when they were effusive with their praise.

‘Such a happy party,’ said one and, impulsively, I leant forward and kissed her. She smelt of champagne.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I think it was.’

Poppy and Richard were still at the centre of a joshing group. They were due to leave for a hotel for the night, then a two-day break in Bath, and a car was waiting. Richard was talking emphatically, but Poppy had gone quiet, and her mouth was white and set. She looked round for me. ‘Mum? Where are you? Mum?’

As I made my way over to her, she pulled free the rose that was pinned to her dress and sent it soaring in an arc towards me.

The catering staff were clearing up. Plates were stacked and glasses shot back into the honeycomb of the cardboard boxes. The waiters exchanged information on jobs and tips. The fairy-lights winked down at bare tables, stacked chairs and filled ashtrays. The place echoed with goodbyes.

‘Such a pretty bride…’

‘Such a nice speech…’

I smiled. Early on, when it was clear that Nathan’s ambitions were going to be realized, he had practised a lot on me. We saved up, and Nathan took lessons in public speaking, the deal being that he passed on to me what he had been taught. I got used to statesmanlike policy declarations, the beer-and-sandwich bluff and, in the days of intense union uncertainty, the Henry V rallying cry to the troops. Today it had worked beautifully.

Except for an obstinate cluster by the door, everyone had gone and it was safe to take off my shoes. Just for a second. The beginnings of a headache pounded above my left eye and I rubbed it. A touch on my shoulder made me turn round.

‘Had we finished our conversation?’ Minty was clutching a handbag in the shape of a flowerpot.

I opened my mouth to say something but a voice cut in: ‘Rose darling,’ said my cousin Henry, ‘thank you so much. You are, as always, a celestial hostess and you look stunning.’ He bent over to kiss me. And damn Nathan.’

‘This is Minty,’ I informed Henry, ‘whom Nathan hopes to marry’

Minty paled. Henry raised an eyebrow. ‘Goodness,’ he said, and turned his back on Minty. ‘But, as they say, goodness has nothing to do with it. Goodbye, Rose.’

Minty hitched her dress down. ‘Brilliant. The first Mrs de Winter to the life. Admit it, Rose, of all the roles, it’s a good one.’

‘You forget I’m not dead.’

Her mouth set in a bitter line and she scratched her arm viciously. The nails impressed white streaks into the flesh, the flesh Nathan preferred. ‘I don’t know what you thought you were doing by gatecrashing, but Nathan wasn’t pleased and you’ve made your point. I’m not angry any more, but it’s better that you go.’

She looked thoughtfully at my naked feet. ‘Are they hurting?’

‘As it happens, yes.’

She smiled and the old sympathy crackled. ‘So are mine.’ Her smile vanished. ‘I… shouldn’t have come,’ she admitted. ‘Nathan will be livid.’

‘Bad luck.’ Both of us contemplated the prospect of Nathan in a rage. ‘Wasn’t it a risk, Minty, coming here?’

‘I was curious,’ she said simply. ‘I didn’t know why I should be made to skulk at home, and I wanted to see this side of Nathan. The side you have, Rose, and I don’t.’

‘You don’t like families.’

‘Well, as you would say, a girl must make a virtue of necessity. Mine all sugared off at the slightest excuse.’

‘I’m sorry about that.’ And I was. ‘But not sorry enough to say, “Help yourself. Don’t mind me. Make off with my husband.” Certainly not sorry enough to want you at Poppy’s party.’

The dark eyes regarded me steadily. ‘I suppose not. But, in the end, does it matter very much? A lot of people made it their business to ignore me. Quite a few of the men pawed at me because I’m that sort of girl and, please don’t forget, I have the dubious distinction of now knowing more than anyone in the room about the workings of the wind turbine.’

I gave an unwilling snort of laughter. ‘Serves you right.’

At that moment, Ianthe rode in. Crocodile handbag with its large gold clasp, bought at a jumble sale, hooked over her arm, she positioned herself beside me. Because she had cried, there was a narrow black runnel of mascara drifting under one eye. ‘Rose, I’m going to collapse if I don’t get home.’ Then she realized to whom I was talking. ‘You,’ she uttered, in thrilling tones. ‘What are you doing here?’

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Sam alongside Jilly, talking to a final guest. I gestured frantically.

Ianthe was enjoying her opportunity to run up her flag and to display her colours on the mast. ‘You should be ashamed.’

Under the onslaught, Minty exuded contempt and defiance, but she had turned even paler and I took pity. ‘Mum, don’t.’ I pulled Ianthe to one side. ‘No scenes. Look, Sam’s here. He’s going to put you into a taxi, aren’t you, Sam?’

Ianthe kissed me crossly. ‘I know that it’s not permitted, these days, to say what you think when your husband leaves you for another woman. You may feel that you must be all woolly and forgiving, but I don’t’

Sam stepped into the breach and bore her away. For the merest fraction of a second, Minty and I exchanged a look. ‘See what I mean?’ she murmured, and I read disappointment, regret and a new, more savage element to her humour.

‘You’d better go, Minty.’

‘I want to say something, Rose.’ She straightened up wearily on those impossible heels. ‘I owe it to you.’

I considered walking away but she gave the short, breathy laugh I knew so well and, I suppose, habit and curiosity triumphed. ‘What?’

‘It isn’t plain sailing. Not at all.’

In the end, things were funny rather than sad. I put my hand on my hip. ‘Any more thoughts of the floozy to the discarded middle-aged wife?’

‘None,’ she admitted, ‘and there’s the tragedy’ There was a pause. ‘I’m sorry, Rose, I hope I didn’t spoil it for you.’

I considered, and the image of the Madonna raising her too-pink hands over the terror and waste flashed through my mind. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You didn’t spoil it.’

The dark eyes widened, softened, said – I think-‘Thank you.’

I bent down to put on my shoes, and when I straightened up, Minty had drifted away. Yet the irony had struck home. In that curious, careless way life has of tossing in coincidences and convergences, it was apparent that Minty and I shared more than divided us.

‘And there it is. The story of the floozy and the wronged wife… and the surprising son-in-law,’ I said to Charles Madder, after I had described the events of the wedding party. ‘How is… what the paper called your mistress, by the way?’

Charles had surprised me by ringing me up and suggesting a drink. It was not often that one had a chance to make new friends, he pointed out. Certainly not in my position. Why not? I thought, and we were now settled in the House of Commons bar with two bowls of peanuts through which Charles was steadily working.

‘My mistress? The one with the exotic sexual tastes? You wouldn’t believe how far from the truth that was. It was Flora’s doing, of course. Her vile lies. Kate is as normal as anyone and her life has been hell ever since the article.’ Charles looked both defeated and baffled. ‘We’ll probably get married, but it’s changed. Exposure to the white heat of publicity that depicts the reverse of what you are does things to a person.’

‘I’m sorry about Kate.’

He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. ‘It’s nice to talk to someone who means what they say. Most people…’ he glanced round the smoke-wreathed bar ‘… don’t mean a word they say. How do I know? Because I used to be the same. So it’s nice to hear a genuine voice.’

‘Thank you.’

Charles insisted I had a second drink and we made easy conversation as if we had known each other for a long time.

When I got home to Lakey Street, pleasantly warmed by the wine and the prospect of a new friendship, there was a message on the answerphone. ‘I’m back in the country,’ said Hal’s voice. ‘When can I see you?’

‘Hey,’ he said, when I phoned him, ‘I have a window, as the publicist would put it. Can we meet for a meal, or something?’

There was no reason not to see Hal and more than one reason to see him. We agreed he would come over for supper, and I swooped into the old routines of putting together a meal and laying the table. The house was filled with flowers from Poppy’s party, and I spent time pulling out dying roses and refilling vases. He caught me with my hands full of spent blooms.

‘Hi,’ said Hal, and proffered a huge bunch of… roses. ‘Bull’s eye, I see,’ he said drily.

In the kitchen, he made me put down the flowers so that he could look at me properly. ‘I didn’t get a chance to study you at that dinner, so do you mind if I do so now?’

I did a bit of my own scrutiny back. I wanted to catalogue the changes and to pinpoint the exact shades of disparity between my idea of him and the man who stood so solidly in my kitchen.

‘It’s very interesting,’ said Hal. ‘You haven’t turned out as I expected.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘You were quite shy in the old days. I thought you might grow into a quiet person, an academic perhaps, someone who preferred the country. You’re much smarter and more metropolitan than I pictured you would be.’

So, the seven-year brain-cycle theory did hold water. ‘In that case, I’ve changed more than you. You look much the same.’ But Hal seemed indifferent as to whether he had changed or not, which was perfectly in character as he had never been much interested in poking around in the psyche. I gave him a glass of wine. ‘How was the book tour?’

‘Fine, if you like that kind of thing. It went on and on. But I’ve trained myself to do it gracefully. Why not? I want people to read my books and I’m grateful when they do.’ He shot me a look. ‘I know what you might say’

‘And what might I say?’

‘That’s a new one. In the past, I never did what anyone wanted.’ I found myself grinning, for that was exactly what I had been thinking. He continued, ‘And since I was over there, I took the chance to go and visit the relations, which only confirmed that I’m neither fish nor fowl, neither an American any more, nor British. It’s a bit of an uneasy place to be. But exile is always good for copy’

There was a silence in which I discovered that sharing a past with someone is deceptive. You think you know everything important about them and, deep down, you do, for the strands of a past history are thick and knotty with issues that require airing and tying up properly. Yet when it came to the give and take of conversation, the little negotiations around the gaps that would initiate this process, I found I did not know enough. ‘Where do we begin?’ I asked.

He grinned. ‘With supper? I’m hungry’

So was I.

By mutual consent, we discussed issues that required no more than the exchange of information. We talked about Hal’s journeys, his future projects, the olive farm in Umbria. ‘Nothing special, as I told you,’ he said. ‘Except it’s very special because the village has allowed me to slip into their lives. There are times when I almost feel I’m not a stranger, and you can’t ask for more than that.’

‘So you’re putting down roots?’

‘I suppose so. I’m back on my ecological path. There’s a battle going on between traditional methods and the new intensive practices, and I want to be there.’

‘Do you speak Italian?’

‘I’ve learnt the dialect.’

Over coffee, he asked about my interests and I told him of my passion for the garden, which he had initiated, about my career and its temporary suspension and the new job. But my sacking had yielded pluses, I was astonished to find myself admitting. ‘I didn’t realize I was in a straitjacket until it wasn’t there.’

Hal lounged back in his chair. ‘It’s an ill wind,’ he said comfortably. ‘There must be other things you want to do.’

‘Yes, indeed, but I’ve not had time to think about them.’

‘Now you have.’

‘The other shock is to discover how quickly I’ve forgotten about the actual process of being at work. The getting up and going, the coming back at night. I spent ten years doing the job I most wanted to do, it meant a huge amount, I minded most dreadfully when I lost it. But the funny thing is, after a week or so, I forgot about its routines. I know that I was plunged into turmoil over Nathan but not having a job doesn’t worry me too much. It is not engrained. How worrying is that? Forgetting something that took up so much of your life, so easily’

‘How worrying is that?’ He spoke seriously but the blue eyes were smiling.

Hal and I stared at each other. It was not an important or significant look, just a relaxed exchange of thoughts – a clearing of the ground – but, suddenly, I was convinced that it would be possible to be happy and whole again.

‘If I’m truthful, Hal, I miss Parsley, my cat, more than the job. She was put down earlier in the year and I think of her most days. Sometimes I wake up and imagine she’s on the bed.’ I looked down at my ringless hand, a gesture that was becoming a habit. ‘She symbolized such a lot of things.’ I looked up at him. ‘Like the rucksack you used to keep in your room.’

At midnight, Hal got up to go. ‘That was very nice,’ he said. ‘Can we repeat it?’ He bent to kiss my cheek, and there was a second’s anticipation – what next? ‘We are friends, you know. We go back a long time.’

Was that true? Hal and I had not been friends but lovers, and we had failed each other at a crucial point. Then there had been neither time nor room for friendship. But ‘friends’ was a good word. It evoked the loyalty of old acquaintanceship and knowledge. I liked it. It could be carried into my new life.

‘Shall I phone?’ Again Hal bent and kissed me. A warm, careful touch on my cheek of which I approved, but my flesh, assuming an independent life, had other ideas and responded with a ripple of gooseflesh. His finger brushed my chin. ‘Since we have begun nicely, shall I ring?’

When you toss a seed into ground primed with rich compost and watered, it will grow. Usually, unless attended by bad luck, it will grow.

‘Yes.’