A Pure Clear Light (2 page)

‘Oh dear,’ said Flora, rather relieved at the thought of being away from him for a bit. ‘Poor Simon.’

‘Yeah,’ said Simon. He was in fact thinking that, with no family around him to distract his attention and commandeer his time, he might be able, at last, to sit down and get to work on that script. The longer one left these things the better they potentially became, but it really was time to get cracking, because
he wasn
’
t getting any younger.

4

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, said Flora under her breath, and the Virgin Mary (all lit up from inside, as if by an electric light bulb) inclined her head ever so slightly. She was ready to receive whatever further confidences Flora might have.
What did
you wish to say to me
,
my child?
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Yes
,
yes. And?
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Very good
,
Flora: I will pray for you.
Ever-ready, ever-virgin Mother of God—pray for my children!
Certainly.
And Simon, my husband.
It shall be done.

Flora picked up the paring knife and went on with the dinner preparations. She didn’t sufficiently believe in God—believe? in God? what could this possibly, now, mean?—to pray to him, or Him, or, just conceivably, Her—but the Virgin was a tolerant sort of creature: nothing if not tolerant: look what she’d put up with already! so there was no difficulty about asking her to do the praying for one. That was what mothers were for. Hail Mary, full of grace, she began again; and the front door slammed shut and Simon came in. The light went out inside the Virgin Mary and she faded from view. ‘Oh, hello darling,’ said Flora; ‘how was your day?’

‘Pretty vile. What about you?’

‘Oh, fine, fine. My day was
fine
.’

‘Oh well. Have we got any gin?’

‘Could you just go and sort out the kids first—there’s an arbitration matter. I left it for you.’

‘Those bloody kids. Where are they?’

‘Upstairs. No, Janey’s in the sitting room. You’ll find them soon enough if you look. Go on.’

He went away, muttering, but came back looking pleased with himself. ‘I’ve sorted it,’ he said.

‘Good.’

‘I had to bribe them.’

‘Did it cost much?’

‘A fiver.’

‘No one could say we haven’t taught them the value of money.’

‘No, they could not. Where’s that gin?’

Holy Mary, Mother of God.

‘I was thinking, so long as you can’t come to France—is that really off, Simon? Definitely?—I was thinking, I might ask Lydia if she’d like to come with us.’

‘What?’

‘Lydia. You know, Faraday. Lydia Faraday.’

‘Yes, I know who you mean. Lydia Faraday. What on earth do you want to ask Lydia Faraday for?’

‘Well, why ever not? Poor Lydia.’

‘Poor
hell.

’ ‘Simon!’

‘Well, for God’s sake.’

‘Anyway, what’s it to do with you? You won’t be there.’

‘Oh,
Flora.
’ Simon sprawled back in his armchair and clutched his head. ‘Honestly,’ he said. ‘
Lydia.

’ Flora, watching this performance, began to laugh. ‘What have you got against poor Lydia?’ she said.

Simon let go of his head and sat up. He reached for the gin bottle and topped up his drink—Flora always made them too weak—and took a swallow. ‘In the first place,’ he said, ‘she isn’t
poor.
She’s probably got more than the rest of us put together. Jack was saying—’

‘Then he shouldn’t have been,’ said Flora severely. Jack Hunter, a solicitor, had done some work for Lydia a year or two back, when she had got into a tax muddle.

‘Don’t be priggish,’ said Simon. ‘The point is, Lydia likes to put it about that she’s on her uppers, but—’

‘That’s not true either,’ said Flora. ‘I never heard her putting it about that she was short of money.’

‘No, she doesn’t say so in so many words,’ said Simon. ‘She’s not that obtuse. She just suggests it in a thousand tiny ways. I could practically throttle her sometimes. Who’s she trying to impress?’

‘Simon, what are you talking about?’ cried Flora, amidst her laughter. ‘Name me even one of those thousand tiny ways.’

‘Well, look at the way she dresses,’ said Simon, ‘for a start.’

‘Dresses?’

‘Yes,
dresses.

’ ‘Fancy your noticing the way she dresses!’ Flora had stopped laughing, or even smiling. What could this mean?

Simon scented the danger and rushed to avert it. ‘I wouldn’t
notice
,’ he said, ‘if she didn’t simply demand one’s attention every time you see her. Oh God. Those bits and pieces.’

‘I always think Lydia looks very nice,’ said Flora, whose own taste ran to French jeans and plain white T-shirts, and things from the Harvey Nick’s sales for more formal occasions; ‘for a woman of her age.’

‘Miaow!’ cried Simon, and they both laughed. One thing which cemented their relationship was that gin always put them in a good humour; so generally they drank some every evening.

‘And that’s another thing,’ said Simon.

‘What is?’ said Flora.

‘Well, her age. I mean, Lydia: it was one thing when one first knew her; fair enough; loose cogs—you expect them when they’re in their twenties, early thirties. Missed the first bus, but there’ll still be a few more; but now, ten years or so later—well: precious few buses. Probably none. Probably missed the last one. And there she still is loose-cogging around the scene, just getting in the way—it’s embarrassing.’

Flora was appalled. ‘Well, really!’ she exclaimed. ‘How—’

‘And then she has to make a meal of it,’ said Simon, ‘with all those jumble-sale outfits. And that itty-bitty flat of hers. And she always wants a lift. She’s just so
pointless.
’

‘Mother of God,’ said Flora.

‘You what?’

‘Mother,’ said Flora. ‘Of God.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Honestly, Simon. If you could hear yourself. The cruelty. That poor woman. What has she ever done to you?’

Simon had been recalled, unexpectedly, to sobriety. He considered the question. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘She just depresses me.’

‘Ah,’ said Flora. ‘Yes. I see. Yes. Make me another drink, will you? There’s just time for another before we eat.’ She watched while Simon made the drink. Lydia
was
sometimes a bit of a downer, that was a fact; but she couldn’t quite tell why. Oh, Mother of God: pray for us sinners.

5

When Flora had got herself married, and then Claire, and then Louisa—well, it rather left Lydia out in the cold, one could say: not that she seemed to care. Well, to be sure, it was—then—early days yet: it was a bit early for
caring.
But still: they (and Alison Brooke, who had vanished to New York, and who therefore did not in the same way thereafter count) had all been friends together, and it was a bit tricky, in so far as they still were, to keep Lydia in the frame when she had no husband or other partner. It was not such a fag while she was still youngish, and attractive—ish! said Simon—but it got trickier by the year. And now she was forty-ish, and it required a certain breadth of vision even to pose the question of whether or not she was, still, attractive. Ish!

‘Attractive? Lydia? You must be joking!’ said Simon.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Robert, husband to Louisa. ‘She’s not bad, is she?’

‘If you go for that style of thing,’ amended Alex, husband to Claire.

‘Lydia is beautiful,’ said little Thomas. ‘I love Lydia.’

‘Lydia has lovely clothes,’ said Nell. ‘She gets them from jumble sales. Can we go to a jumble sale, Mum?’

‘Lydia is pathetic,’ said Janey. ‘Please don’t ask her to come with us to France, Mum. She’ll ruin everything.’

‘How unkind you are,’ said Flora. ‘How do you mean, pathetic?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Janey. ‘She just is. She tries too hard.’ People often did, with Janey, for she had a critical mien, but it was not a bit of use; it was indeed the worst thing one could possibly do. Janey was one very tough young woman.

Five years ago, when Thomas was a tiny baby, just home from the hospital, and Simon had had to go away on location for six weeks, Lydia had come to stay, because with Nell having been but four years old—although Janey was eight and reasonably self-sufficient— it was all a bit much for the rather flighty au pair: and Lydia had been—providentially, for the Beaufort household— between (as she so often, after all, was) jobs.

‘But she’s been absolutely wonderful,’ cried Flora. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without her.’

Simon was always in an illish temper when he got back from one of these away-assignments, little new baby or no little new baby—‘See how much fatter he is since Daddy went away! Who’s my fat little boy? Who’s my little fatty? Who’s Mummy’s little darling? Who’s this? This is your daddy—yes,
Daddy—
smile for Daddy!’

Simon took the child and cuddled him, awkwardly at first and then with more aplomb, and said, over the baby’s downy head, ‘But really, Flora, she doesn’t need to stay here any longer, does she, now that I’m back? I’d have thought she’d have been off out of the place by the time I fetched up—not installed in that kitchen with the girls making meringues as if she bloody lived here. When does she mean to go?’

The baby was becoming restless and Flora took him back. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘She’ll go soon, I expect. As soon as she gets the vibe you’re giving out. Just carry on, Simon. Make her feel unwanted. I’ll lay odds we’ll see her calling for a taxi by suppertime.’

Simon ignored the irony in these remarks and simply asserted that he would be more than happy to take Lydia home himself. ‘Where’s she actually living these days?’ he said.

‘Oh, Maida Vale-ish,’ said Flora vaguely. ‘You know.’ She had never actually been there.

‘I don’t,’ said Simon, ‘but I mean to find out.’ He turned to leave the room.

‘If you say even one word,’ said Flora, ‘to make her feel
de trop
I shall never have anything more to do with you.’

He was half out of the door but he turned back to face her. ‘Now, would I do that?’ he said.

He went down to the kitchen, where Lydia and the eight-year-old Janey (looking fairly tough already) and the four-year-old Nell, all dressed in striped aprons, were sitting contemplating the meringues, all set out on a wire rack.

‘We’re waiting for them to get cold,’ squeaked Nell. ‘Then we’re going to put whipped cream inside them, and then we’re going to eat them!’

‘I say,’ said Simon. ‘It’s an orgy.’

‘What’s an orgy?’

He caught Lydia’s dark brown (almost black) eye. ‘It’s a feast of pleasure,’ he said drily.

‘We’re not going to eat them all,’ said Janey very seriously. ‘We’re going to have one each. The rest are for pudding tonight.’

‘Ah,’ said Simon. Lydia stood up.

‘Gabriella should be back any minute now,’ she told him. ‘There’s a casserole in the oven for supper—she’ll do the rest. So when we’ve finished this meringue business I’ll begin making my way—as long as you don’t need me for anything more here. I was actually just about to go up and sort this out with Flora when you came in. I’ll go and do that now. See you in a minute, girls!’ She left the room.

Oh God, thought Simon, she couldn’t have overheard anything, could she? Surely not—they’d been two floors away. ‘She’s in the nursery!’ he called out to her, as Lydia went up the stairs.

She returned ten minutes later. She looked perfectly happy. No, she couldn’t possibly have overheard us, Simon assured himself. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘that’s all fixed. Simon, Flora told me that I must ask you if you’d mind taking me home—but for my part I must say that I wouldn’t dream of troubling you; I can get a taxi easily.’

‘We won’t hear of it,’ said Simon. ‘My pleasure. When did you want to leave?’

‘Well, Flora insisted on my staying for supper,’ said Lydia. ‘So after that, whenever you like. I’ll just go and pack up, anyway— we’ll do the meringues after that, girlies, okay? See you in a bit.’ And she went off again. And then Gabriella turned up, and the evening program proceeded on its way, until, finally, the moment arrived for Simon to take Lydia home to Maida Vale.

6

It wasn’t what Simon would have called Maida Vale, but what the hell, here in any event they were, in a battered little street near the canal. ‘Hmmm,’ said Simon, looking up at the peeling façades of a terrace of ungentrified stucco-fronted houses; ‘interesting neighbourhood. I don’t believe I’ve ever been in this part of the world before.’

And if I have anything to do with it, Lydia’s glance seemed to say, you won’t again. ‘Oh, really?’ she said, in the surprised tone of one to whom the remark might have been uttered in, say, Gloucester Road. ‘Well, never mind. You’re here now. Thank you so much for the lift. I do hope you’ll be able to find your way out again without too much trouble.’ She’d had to give him directions towards the end.

‘Oh, no problem, no problem,’ said Simon. ‘But look, you must let me give you a hand with that suitcase. Didn’t you say you lived on the top floor?’ The offer was purely a formality; the idea of entering the house was entirely unsympathetic: even fearsome. That peeling paint; God knew what rot might be found within.

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Lydia. ‘How very kind.’

Simon, flabbergasted, picked up the suitcase and followed Lydia—who was carrying two bulging plastic bags—through the front door and up the uncarpeted stairs.

It seemed clean enough, even sound enough; the landings were free of refuse, needles, rats, and worse; there were no disgusting esoteric odours. It was a case of arrested decline rather than outright decay. They reached the top floor, and Lydia did the business with the mortice lock and at last opened her front door. ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘Do come in.’ He could hardly refuse; filled with a new dread, he entered Lydia’s flat.

Lydia had darted across the room on to which the front door immediately opened and turned on a desk lamp, and Simon, still carrying the suitcase, beheld a sitting room with three arched windows which overlooked the street. He put the suitcase down and glanced around at the shabby furniture, the haphazard decor. ‘So this is where you live,’ he said pointlessly.