A Stairway to Paradise (13 page)

44

Mimi arrived at Heathrow in the care of a BA stewardess, with three juvenile-sized pieces of matching luggage, the smallest of which she was able to carry herself, and wearing a Radcliffe sweatshirt. Andrew fought back tears, and swept her up in his arms.

‘It’s good to cry,’ said Mimi.

After five days in London he took her to a rented cottage in Herefordshire, near his parents and—less near—his sister; catering became less of a problem. There was a walk every morning, without fail. ‘That’s an elm,’ he told her. ‘Now rare. And that chap’s a beech.’ And so it went on.

On Sunday morning he took her to church: she made a fist of singing the hymns. Not that he’d have dreamed of such an outing, left to himself. But he wanted the child to receive an indelible impression of everything—anything—one could call English—so long as there should still remain anything one could call indelibly English. (The liturgy had been vandalised, of course, but they hadn’t done anything so barbarous to the building itself, and they were still using Hymns Ancient and Modern.) ‘How do you do,Vicar. Yes, just visiting—down from London. Yes, yes indeed, thank you.’ And on to the next punter.

‘Dad? I’m
real
hungry.’

‘Well, isn’t it a good thing we’ve got a roast dinner waiting for us at Grandma’s?’

‘What’s a roast dinner?’

‘You’re about to find out!’

And yorkshire pudding, and gravy. As only the English can, or would. And raspberries, afterwards, that his father had grown, and that Mimi had helped to pick. Well, he did his absolute best; so did they all.

‘So, Mimi, what do you think of England?’

‘England’s
cool
!’

But at night she got homesick, and cried for her mother. Andrew cuddled her, and brought her hot milk—which she didn’t like, until sugar was added to it—and read her a story, until she at last fell asleep. Then he went and sat in the low-ceilinged cottage parlour, and looked out into the darkening country night, and thought: crazy. Will it—can it—ever come right—really right— now?

45

Zoë and the Bazza didn’t seem to mind how long Barbara stayed— ‘Feel free!’ they said. She found a waitressing job in a restaurant ten minutes’ walk away: she earned the most stupendous tips. She started saving money, so as to go around Australia on a bus, and she gave Zoë a suitable sum each Friday to cover rent and board. ‘Well, if it makes you feel better,’ said Zoë.

There were lots of people coming in and out, even staying for a few days or so, in this household. It was that sort of as-yet-childless menage. ‘Hey there, Barbie,’ they said. ‘How are you doin’?’ Offers of sightseeing drives, of weekends in houses in the Blue Mountains and up the north coast and down the south coast came in a steady flow: people couldn’t have been kinder. And the food was superb, and the weather, of course; and the scenery.

‘So how are you liking Sydney?’ the affable new acquaintances asked her.

‘Oh, it’s paradise,’ she assured them.

And what should I do in Elysium, she asked herself: my lover, he is in Illyria. Well, at any rate, Albion. She was wrenched by homesickness; and by the further qualification, that Alex, after all, was not, precisely speaking, her lover, and at last, having sufficiently considered all this under the relentless antipodean light, she was devastated by the realisation that it was, after all, beyond all likelihood that Alex and she would ever now be lovers again: that the notion of his waiting so long for her, if not also she for him, was entirely exorbitant, and could no longer, truly, be entertained. Blinking in the unforgiving glare, she stumbled through the awful sunlit days.

She ought in any event to write to Andrew—she’d even bought an aerogram for the purpose. She’d bought it some weeks ago. Here was a pen. She sat at the table in her bedroom, contemplating once again the impossible task, defeated by an encompassing sense of the futility of her existence, looking out through the window at the fabulous ultramarine of the harbour where the white-sailed boats merrily tacked in the prevailing wind. What should she do in Elysium, or anywhere? Overwhelmed all at once by a despair which was entirely new to her, Barbara began suddenly, silently and uncontrollably, to weep. She was discovered thus by Zoë who, having knocked perfunctorily on her door, had entered the room immediately; concealment was impossible.

‘Oh, God, Barbie—is it something I’ve done?’

‘No—oh, no—no of course not—it’s
nothing
—’

‘Or Baz? He’s a tactless blighter, the Bazza. Just tell me.’

‘No, no, really—you couldn’t be kinder, either of you—I’m so lucky to—’

‘Oh, God, poor old Barbie.’ Zoë crouched awkwardly by Barbara’s chair, an arm around the girl’s shoulders. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s probably just culture shock, that’s all. It’s a killer, isn’t it?’

Barbara said nothing; she was still crying too much to speak more than a few words at a time. Zoë continued to crouch beside her, looking upwards, her large dark eyes full of apprehension.

At last Barbara’s tears abated and she sat, looking down at her hands, while she folded a fresh Kleenex tissue into ever-tinier squares.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Really.’

‘Nothing?’

‘No, really. It’s just—I suppose it’s just, that I don’t really know what
to do
.’

‘To do?’

Barbara shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ she said miserably. ‘With my life.’

‘Oh—no one knows that! Join the gang!’

‘No, but—I mean—I just—I don’t actually
belong
anywhere. All I do is drift along—I’ve never even had a proper job—’

‘And you’re complaining?’

Barbara managed a very pale smile. ‘I can’t go on in this way,’ she said. ‘But I—really—I don’t know what else to
do
.’

‘This is so sudden,’ said Zoë. ‘I mean, I thought you were so free—you and Gideon and Charles—the ’90s dropouts—great—I thought—’

‘Oh, that was then. Now—’

‘I suppose you’re missing Gideon, eh? I mean, he’s quite a guy.’

She gave Barbara a questioning sideways glance.

‘Oh,’ said Barbara, shrugging, ‘yes, well, a bit, I suppose. I mean, Gideon—I mean, we’re not—’ and she began to cry again: two large tears ran down her cheeks and then she began to weep in earnest. She’d never meant to tell, and never previously had told, anyone, anywhere, about Alex: but now, since it was the only possible release from an unendurable sorrow, she related, very briefly, her tale.

46

‘Oh dear oh dear,’ said Zoë. ‘Oh, God. Well, there’ll always be an England.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, for God’s sake. I mean—no, look, forget I said that. But it all sounds so mid-Victorian. Poor Barbie. I mean, this guy, this Alex, for a start. What’s all this staying-together-for-the-sake-of-the-kids stuff about, when we’re at home? Are you sure he isn’t just fobbing you off?’

‘Of course not!’

‘Well, all right, sorry—oh, God, what have I said?’

Barbara had started to cry again. ‘You don’t understand,’ she sobbed. ‘Alex isn’t like that, he—’ Alex is entirely truthful and entirely honourable. How did she know this? It was true nonetheless.
It was true
.

‘All right, I believe you; please don’t cry.’ Zoë gave her another tissue. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘That’s better. See,’ she went on, as gently as she could, ‘even if he believes he’s got to stay put, I mean, fair dinkum, even then—he could be wrong, you know. I mean, if him and his wife have gone so cold on each other—well, what sort of an example of adult relationships is that for two impressionable kids? For another—what is it—five years? Four? Whatever. Ye gods. So. This Alex. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to him that the kids might actually be better off with him and his wife living apart, has it? It has been known, you know. God, we know dozens of divorced parents—kids thriving—no one bothers about that stuff these days: there are worse things to worry about, believe me.’

‘Yes, yes, I know. But it’s just—it wasn’t for me to urge that point, you see.’

‘Oh, wasn’t it?’

‘No, truly it wasn’t.’

Zoë was silent, half-exasperated, half-dumbfounded; Barbara sat, staring in miserable reminiscence at her hands as they folded another tissue into ever-tinier squares. ‘Well,’ said Zoë at last, ‘that seems to leave only one alternative then, which is for you two to be lovers. Go for it, Barbie-doll. You’ve earned it.’

Barbara almost smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘What’s the problem then?’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can’t?’

‘I can’t.
We
can’t. Oh, I suppose Alex would be happy enough— for a while, at any rate. But even then—you see—’ and Barbara made a huge effort, looking up, looking into Zoë’s eyes, straining as never before to articulate the entire truth: ‘you see,’ she said, ‘it just wouldn’t
do
. It wouldn’t be good enough, it would be unworthy. The deception, the secrecy, the untruth of it—it wouldn’t be what we
are
, it wouldn’t be
good
.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘I’m sorry’

‘You English.’

‘Oh, no—it’s not we English—it’s just me. Most of the English would agree with you, I dare say. I don’t know.’

‘All the same. Oh, God. Look—do you love this guy, or don’t you?’

Barbara looked at Zoë again. ‘Love,’ she repeated. ‘Well— obviously—but you see: what I think is, that you have to find out what it
means
, as time goes on—I mean, you start with one thing, but it keeps changing. And that’s just it, you see: we wouldn’t find out—it might even stop being love altogether—if we had this secret relationship; if we were deceiving other people by having the relationship at all—it wouldn’t, actually, be real. It wouldn’t be the real thing. It wouldn’t really be
love
.’

‘This is probably too metaphysical for me.’

Barbara looked downwards in misery. ‘It’s just the way I am,’ she said. ‘Yes, I can see it probably looks stupid. It probably is stupid.’

Tears started to roll down her cheeks again. Zoë, feeling a genuine and even profound pity, put her arms around the girl. ‘Perhaps it’ll work itself out, somehow,’ she said. ‘You’ve just gotta keep the faith, babe.’

‘Yes,’ said Barbara, crying silently. ‘Yes, perhaps it will.’ She wiped her eyes. She had spoken bravely, without hope—for it was time to release her confidante. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I must look for something to do. That’s the immediate problem—I see that now. I mean, it’s been wonderful—India and everything—I’ve been so lucky, truly—Gideon, and Charles, and you and Bazza—but—I have to
do
something.’

‘Well, you will.’

‘It’s just a matter of deciding what.’

‘No problem.’

Barbara could almost have believed her. She managed a glimmering smile. ‘No,’ she bravely, but hopelessly, agreed. ‘None. Oh, God.’ Zoë patted her shoulder encouragingly, while Barbara wiped away the last traces of her tears. She looked up again at Zoë. ‘Isn’t it strange,’ she said, ‘the way we always say that?
Oh, God
: you’d think we actually meant it.’

‘Don’t we?’

Barbara looked at her, startled. Zoë, a believer?

‘Only joking,’ said Zoë.

‘Oh,’ said Barbara. ‘Yes, of course. Silly me.’

‘Yeah. Silly you. Say, what about a cuppa? A nice cuppa, and a nice spliff.’

‘Wouldn’t say no to that.’

‘Yer on then!’

Barbara followed Zoë downstairs, through the endless-seeming darkness, bravely and without hope;
Oh, God
, she said to herself,
God help me
. And that was when she saw it. She was almost winded with the shock—it was like being suddenly knocked over, right off one’s feet. She began to laugh: she was laughing so much that she had to sit down, helpless, and lean her head on the kitchen table.

‘Good God,’ said Zoë, ‘what is it now?’

Barbara laughed even harder, then at last she looked up. ‘I’ve just seen it,’ she cried. ‘God! He
does
exist!’

‘She,’ said Zoë.

‘Whatever,’ said Barbara. ‘It’s that person, that thing, that’s there when you say
Oh, God
. There’d have to be something there, actually
there
, or you couldn’t say it, could you? You
couldn’t
.’

‘I reckon not.’

Zoë began to laugh too, and that’s how the Bazza found them when he came in: laughing their heads off. ‘What’s going on here?’ he said.

‘Barbara’s just found God.’

‘No, God found me.’

‘Same thing.’

‘Is it?’

‘Has to be.’

Bazza started laughing too: they all, all three of them, had a jolly good laugh. It was absolutely the funniest thing that had happened for an age. God!

47

Lizzie Ainsworth (who was a television producer) had run into Simon Beaufort (who was a television director) down at the Beeb, and on learning that his wife and children had all gone off to the Périgord without him (he having been detained in London by work, contrary to the original plan) had asked him round for a meal; this done, she had invited Alex to join them—‘Poor old Alex,’ she explained to Alfred. ‘I mean, there he is, rattling around in that enormous house, summer after summer, while Claire and the kids lark about on a French beach—might as well give the poor old darling a square meal while it’s going.’

‘Poor old Alex,’ said Alfred, ‘is probably glad to be rid of Claire for a bit. Probably perfectly happy, actually, even if he misses the kids, which I wouldn’t assume.’

‘All the same,’ said Lizzie. ‘Poor old Alex. Poor old Claire, come to that—poor old things, both of them. Rotten luck.’

‘They might as well get divorced, really,’ said Alfred, uncorking a bottle of white wine.

‘They can’t, they’re staying together for the children; at any rate until Percy’s at Winchester.’

‘Westminster.’

‘Whatever: still a long way off.’

‘What a horlicks, eh?’ Alfred poured out some wine and tasted it.

‘Poor Claire,’ sighed Lizzie, with genuine feeling.

‘Poor fiddlesticks,’ said Alfred. ‘She’s probably having it off with some novelist on her free afternoons. It’s Alex I’m sorry for.’

‘Alex could be in the same boat, of course,’ said Lizzie. Hardly were the words out of her mouth when the doorbell rang. ‘Whoops,’ she said. ‘That’ll probably be him now.’