Holding On (12 page)

‘I think you will,' she'd agreed. ‘So have we a date?'

‘I might be going up to London a bit later,' he said now, to Susanna, as he followed her off the platform. ‘We'll work out some dates for Janie.'

‘OK,' she'd said cheerfully enough. ‘Where did we put the shopping list?'

Mole, driving carefully into the town in his grandmother's Anglia estate, thought briefly and longingly of his cousin's little sports car. Maybe, when he passed out from Dartmouth, his grandmother might give
him
such a present.

 

‘It was nothing,' Hal said wearily, for the hundredth time. ‘Honestly nothing. Please, darling, can't we just stop this? She was holding the tray and I offered to take it from her. Good manners and all that. Nothing else.'

‘You didn't see your face,' she hissed, hating him, loving him, utterly miserable.

Hal gritted his teeth lightly together, wearied by the relentlessness of Maria's jealousy. He knew that she was partly justified. In that strange moment with Fliss in the hall, all his old longings and love for her had come rushing back. In an undefinable way it felt as though she were a part of him; a very dear and necessary part. She'd felt it, too, he'd known it. Afterwards, guilt had assailed him. It was unfair to both Fliss and Maria and he'd cursed himself, especially when he learned that Maria had seen them.

‘I'd been drinking.' He'd said this again and again. ‘Fliss is my cousin. I'm very fond of her and she's going a long way away to have her first baby. I suddenly felt a tremendous affection for her. Surely it is not wrong to feel affection for my cousin. I'd feel the same for Susanna. Or Mole.'

In his heart he knew that it wasn't quite true. Fliss was special; damnably special. It was unfair to deny Maria's intuition or to attempt to make her jealousy seem irrational. It would be easy to swing the guilt around, to make love to her, persuade her and so move into that desirable situation where she was apologising for being a cow, asking him to forgive her for her lack of faith in his love. She tried to overcome her jealous nature and he knew that it was only because she loved him so much, was terrified of losing him, that she felt so insecure. It was a rotten thing to do, to try to put her in the wrong. Often, when her reactions were quite unreasonable, her accusations hurtful, he was prepared to take a stand, to justify his behaviour, but this time . . .

‘Look,' he said gently, ‘I don't know what it looked like but I accept that I'm to blame here. I'd drunk quite a bit and I was in that silly, sentimental stage. It's very difficult for you but you simply have to believe that I love you. We only have one more week of leave left and then I'm going to sea for six weeks. Please don't let's waste any more time. It was lovely having Ma to stay but it's even better to be on our own. This time next week I shall be gone and we'll both be miserable as hell. Can't we enjoy the few days left?'

Maria's felt her misery gather inside her, a tremendous weight in her breast. She knew that what he said was true: in a week's time she would be crying her eyes out, missing him desperately, wishing that they hadn't wasted time rowing. It simply wasn't that easy, however, to forget the quite uncousinly look she'd seen on Hal's face as she'd come out of the drawing room. She sat on the arm of the chair, her arms crossed tightly beneath her breast, head bowed.

‘Please?' He touched her shoulder. This time she did not shrug him away and he took courage. ‘Honestly,' he said, kneeling on the seat beside her, putting his arm round her, ‘I only want you, Maria. Please believe me. If I'd really wanted Fliss, I'd have been with her now, wouldn't I? But I'm here with you because I want to be. It'll be easier here, I promise you. I know lots of people and you'll be able to make some friends with wives of your own age. We'll find a nicer place to live and the family's just up the road when I'm away. I'm sure we'll have a baby soon. And you don't have to worry about Fliss. She won't even be around for two years. Please, Maria, I hate it when we're like this. I need you, too, you know . . .'

She turned to him then, balancing on the arm of the chair whilst he kneeled on the seat, and he closed his eyes as he kissed her, so that she wouldn't see the sudden, inexplicable rush of tears which he was unable to prevent.

It was hot; almost too hot to play. In the cool of the drawing room Freddy allowed her fingers to wander haphazardly over the keys of the Bechstein as she sat trying to decide which particular music would suit her mood: the tempestuous sonatas of Beethoven or the sonorous intricacies of Bach's fugues? The problem was that she had no clear idea of her present mood. In an attempt to analyse it she realised that she felt unsettled, faintly irritable, spoiling for an argument. Freddy smiled to herself as she played the opening notes of one of Chopin's studies. No wonder Theo had disappeared so promptly immediately after luncheon. He had gauged her mood with an unerring instinct, developed over years of experience, and made his timely escape. They were all a little jumpy. Fliss was staying for the last time before she flew out to Hong Kong. She'd brought some things to be stored, Miles having agreed to let the house in Above Town to a fellow officer coming to the college for two years.

‘He's married,' Fliss had said. ‘They're in their thirties but no children. Perfect as far as Miles is concerned.'

There had been something in her voice which had alerted Freddy, a note which had been almost – almost
bitter
, Freddy decided. When pressed, however, Fliss had been evasive and had deftly turned the subject to Hong Kong; the eighteen-hour flight with the break at Dubai; the flat which had been arranged for them in Mount Austin Mansions on the Peak, overlooking Victoria Harbour.

‘Miles has it all planned,' she'd said. This time her voice had been altogether more cheerful but Freddy was not deceived. ‘One of his old friends in SOO in HMS
Tamar
. That's the shore establishment. He's organised everything for us. Miles is determined that there won't be a hitch. It's such a relief to be married to someone who's so dependable. He hates inefficiency. It must be hell to have a husband who was doing it all for the first time. So frightening.'

But much more fun. Freddy had not said the words but they had come unbidden to her mind and she'd been confused at her instinctive thought. Surely it was better for Fliss to be going so far away with someone who knew the ropes rather than with some raw beginner? Yet two young people could have such fun discovering things together. It occurred to Freddy that the wives of Miles's fellow officers must be a great deal older than Fliss. Did she have any friends of her own age? She had such good times with Kit and Sin and – in a slightly different way – with Susanna and Mole. Did she miss the companionship of people of her own age?

As Freddy played, her heart grew weighty with anxiety and fear. It had been a relief when Fliss had elected to accept Miles's proposal. Freddy had been glad to think that she would be looked after, protected; but did Fliss need protecting? Through the music, Freddy heard Theo's words, uttered when they'd received the news of Fliss's engagement.

‘
. . . a myth has grown up around Fliss because of the way Peter and Jamie died . . . She missed their influence . . . the comfort of having someone older and stronger to rely on and so she turned to Hal . . . Now she has turned to Miles. She is using his strength to help her over this painful time and is committing herself in so doing. I think that she has enough strength of her own to deal with it, if she is given the space to develop it.
'

He had gone on to speak of women who were capable, who had great emotional strength, coming to resent men who refused to allow them to exercise their potential abilities; that, though they might be temporarily seduced by such men's power and instinctively submit to it, there would eventually be a dangerous point of conflict. At the time Freddy had been distracted by their own situation, realising at last why Theo had refused for so long to live permanently at The Keep; that he had feared that he might influence her and that she might come to resent him. When they returned to the subject of Fliss's engagement to Miles he had told her that he was frightened for both of them and counselled that they should wait.

Freddy thought: It was an impossible situation. Without reopening all the old wounds of her love for Hal we could not have discussed it with her.

Once again, she remembered Theo's words. ‘
I'd rather she was unhappy for a while
,' he'd said, ‘
than committed to a man she doesn't really love
.'

Her answer had been a realistic one. ‘
But then we don't know that she doesn't love him, do we? There are other kinds of enduring love than that which is described as love at first sight . . . Fliss will be happier with an older man . . .
'

That was when Theo had talked about the myth which had grown up round Fliss after the death of her parents and brother. Freddy recalled her own frustration at that point, her anxiety. Yet during these last two years these feelings had subsided. Fliss had seemed quite content, happier, in fact, than Hal and Maria. Surely it was simply because Fliss was expecting a baby and going to Hong Kong that everyone was touchy and on edge? It was so easy to get things out of proportion when one was anxious.

The knock at the door made her jump and she turned quickly, calling, ‘Come in.' It was Mole.

Watching him approach, Freddy's heart bumped unevenly as he crossed the carpet towards her. How much he had grown in this last year – and how extraordinarily like Theo he was: tall and lean, his thick dark hair flopping forward, the brown eyes watchful and serious. Fifty years wavered and dissolved and Freddy felt the pain that she'd experienced each time she'd seen her brother-in-law and been unable to tell her love. She saw that his smile, too, was Theo's smile, crinkling round his eyes but barely touching his mouth.

She swallowed. ‘What d'you want?' she asked hoarsely.

Mole frowned a little, alerted by her tone, surprised. ‘I'd like to talk to you,' he said, ‘if it's not inconvenient.'

‘Do they call you Sam at Dartmouth?' she asked.

He was caught off guard by this apparently irrelevant question. ‘Yes, they do,' he answered. ‘Nobody there knows my nickname. I made Hal promise he'd never tell.'

Well, that was reasonable enough. Freddy stared at him. Unforgivably, she wanted to punish him for looking like Theo, for disturbing all the old demons which she'd tried so hard to crush. When had he grown up and become a man?

‘Why did Alison call you Sam?' She was thinking aloud.

‘Her f-father was called Sam,' Mole told her, still puzzled by his grandmother's behaviour. ‘Well, Samuel, actually. But I'm just Sam. When I was first born and she told people my name, they'd say, “Oh Samuel,” and she'd say, “No, just Sam,” until everyone called me “Just Sam”. Well, until I started hiding under things and they nicknamed me Mole. That was Daddy, actually.'

He watched the tears start in her eyes, her hands tremble in her lap, and he went down on his knees beside her and put his arms around her. She turned her face against his broad shoulder and wept; wept for herself and for Theo; for her darling boys, Peter and John; for Alison and Jamie; for Fliss . . . She reached for her handkerchief but he took out his own and gave it to her, watching her as she blotted her eyes and cheeks and blew her nose in the white linen.

‘What were you going to say?' she asked in barely more than whisper, holding him where he was, still kneeling beside her.

‘I want to go to London next week,' he said.

‘To whom are you going?' she asked – as she had once asked Theo – and waited breathlessly for his answer.

Mole, puzzled as Theo had been at the strange phrasing of her question, stared into her eyes.

‘I'm going to Sin,' he answered slowly – and they both were silent as if listening to his words as they hung in the air.

‘Yes,' she said at last. ‘I'm sure you are.'

He frowned and made to say that this wasn't what he meant – and paused as he realised that it was very nearly true.

‘Kit's away,' he said, as if confirming this, and she nodded and looked away from him.

‘Why are you telling me?'

He did not reply immediately. ‘I didn't know that I was going to,' he said at last. ‘Oh, I meant to say that I was going off for a few days, naturally, but I hadn't decided quite what to say about . . . going to stay with Sin.'

Freddy thought: It is quite right for him. She will give him the confidence he needs to approach other girls later. It will be exciting and very educational and fun.

Aloud, she said, ‘I don't wish to know anything else.' Her hand held his own tightly as she smiled at him. ‘I'm not certain that I am being a responsible grandmother to you, my dear boy.'

He smiled back at her, relief sweeping through him, excitement rising. ‘You're being wonderful.' He began to laugh. ‘After all, to sin is human, to
forgive
divine. You're being divine, Grandmother. In advance.'

‘To
err
is human,' she corrected him sharply – but she still smiled as she released him. ‘Go away. And, Mole . . .'

He turned back at the door, grinning at her, eyebrows raised.

A terrible sadness convulsed her so suddenly that she could barely see him. Dark images and shadows surrounded him . . . Death striking suddenly out of a bright day.

‘Be careful,' she muttered. ‘Please, take care.'

He stood for a moment, puzzled but too elated to be truly anxious.