Holding On (42 page)

Theo thrust his hands into his pockets as he watched Fliss helping Fred down from the seat, pushing Rex out of the way. He was quite certain that she and Hal still loved each other. He had come upon them just after Freddy's death, embracing. Their arms were wrapped tightly about the other, Hal's head lowered to hers with his face turned away, but on her face had been an expression of such peace and happiness that Theo had felt tears pricking at the back of his eyes. He had turned and gone away, unseen.

Theo thought: We should never have parted them.

Neither Maria nor Miles seemed to guess at their spouses' love for each other and – as far as he could judge – it had not been allowed to affect their marriages. Yet there was danger in such love . . . Theo thought of his undeclared love for Freddy and sighed for Hal and Fliss. He gave thanks that he had been given strength to cope with it and hoped that they would be similarly blessed. As he turned from the window there was a knock at the door. It opened and Prue put her head in, smiling at him.

‘Lunch,' she said. ‘Children's lunch. Sausages and jam roly poly. Are you feeling strong?'

‘Sounds wonderful,' he told her. ‘Fliss and young Fred have just arrived back,' and they went together downstairs to meet them.

 

Later, when Prue was getting ready for bed, a small wooden duck fell from nowhere, rolling on the floor beside her slippers. She bent to pick it up, recognising it, frowning as she turned it in her hand.

‘How extraordinary,' she murmured. ‘How absolutely
extraordinary
!'

Andrew Prior let himself into his flat in the house in Hampstead, dropped his overnight case on the hall chair and drew a breath of pleasure. The brief promise of summer had all too soon given way to a cold wet blustery reminder of winter and he found the country depressing in these conditions. The pervading odour of damp wool and wet dog filled the kitchen, and mud infiltrated even into the drawing room. Margaret, who never felt the cold and had no concept of cosiness, clumped about with an insensitive cheerfulness, talking to the dogs and looking rather contemptuously upon him as he huddled by a smoking fire of damp wood.

‘Not that cold, is it, boys?' she'd demand heartily of the dogs – she usually apprised him of her feelings through this medium. ‘Should get out more, shouldn't he? Get some fresh air in his lungs. Now where did I put that list? I could have sworn it was in this drawer . . .
No
, Hercules,
not
on the sofa while you're still wet. Oh, well, I suppose there's no real harm. Poor old boy. You're not as young as you were, are you? Ah,
here
it is . . . Damn, it's my week for the church flowers. Now what have I got? Hmm . . . Do you think you could make yourself useful, Andrew? That warm spell has really brought on the daffodils. You know? Down by the paddock? A nice big bunch, please. Cut them long enough, won't you? Don't pick them all. Be intelligent about it . . . What? No, it's hardly raining at all. No, it
can't
wait . . . Oh, all right, I'll do it myself . . .'

Feeling guilty but faintly resentful, he'd dragged himself out into the cold dampness, rain dripping down his neck as he bent over the daffodils, drops of water splashing on to his icy hands from the golden trumpets, his booted feet trampling the muddy grass . . .

Now Andrew sighed again happily as he looked about the clean warm flat where there was no evidence of a drying guernsey nor yet the muddy footprint of a wet dog.

‘He's a townie, isn't he, boys? Not a countryman, more's the pity.'

Margaret always managed to imply that there was something lacking in anyone who preferred the town to the country; that they were shallow and light-minded. She certainly thought this about Sin and Kit; she utterly despised them, simply could not take them seriously. Yet when he had attempted to explain the nature of Sin's work as an archivist at the British Museum she'd shrugged it aside, barely waiting to hear him out.

‘Can't imagine how anyone can be stuffing inside all day, can we, boys? Wouldn't suit us, would it?'

To be fair, it had been some time before Andrew had seen past the flippant exterior which Kit and Sin invariably presented to the world – and even to each other for much of the time – and had begun to learn more about them. It had taken time. He, too, was a private, cautious man, and he acknowledged and respected similar traits in other people, but once he and Sin had begun to go together to the opera the barriers had lowered rather more quickly, and slowly, very slowly, he had become extraordinarily fond of her. Margaret knew all about their outings – knew and was indifferent. She had no fear of someone as flighty and foolish as Sin. Even her name – ‘Yes, I appreciate that it's her nickname, I'm not
quite
an idiot, am I, boys? But even so . . .' – was a clear indication to Margaret that here was someone who was beneath her notice.

As he hung up his coat there was a sound from the flat above, of something falling, and he glanced towards the ceiling his face brightening. Was it possible that Sin might be back from the BM already? He glanced at his watch, remembering that he'd missed lunch: nearly three o'clock, surely it was much too early? It could be Kit, of course, but he had a sudden overwhelming desire to go upstairs and see. It was odd how much he'd begun to miss Sin – well, both of them, he hastened to tell himself – during his sojourns in the country and lately he felt rather like a small boy going home from school for the holidays when he returned to London from Wiltshire. As he climbed the stairs he laughed at himself. He was nearly sixty, after all, and such comparisons were ludicrous yet his heart was bumping about quite excitedly. It was fortunate that he was a sensible and happily married man or it might be quite easy for friends to misunderstand the way he felt about Sin: the way he liked to keep looking at her, hearing her drawling, amused voice and wicked chuckle; the way she took his arm as they walked to the tube on the way to the opera and said to him, ‘Now explain the plot and don't leave anything out. I don't want to look a complete fool . . .'; the way she'd reach up to kiss his cheek to thank him and he'd feel an absurd, heady rush of joy; the way he felt an odd emptiness, loneliness almost, when she was away for any length of time . . .

His steps grew slower, his eyes fixed unseeingly ahead until, at the top of the stairs on the landing outside the front door, Andrew finally stood aghast before the fact of his love for Sin. His immediate reaction, shock and fear, caused him to make the attempt of re-adjusting this revolutionary idea. It simply could not be so. He began to see, however, how his marriage had given him an illusion of safety, of invulnerability, and Margaret's own indifference had underlined his confidence, making him – he'd imagined – impregnable. Had she ever been jealous or suspicious then perhaps his own innocence – until now his protection – might have been damaged and the truth acknowledged much earlier because, now that he could see clearly, he realised that he had loved Sin for a long time. Hard though he tried, and he
did
try, standing there before her door, he could not convince himself any longer that he loved her in a brotherly way – he instinctively shied away from the word ‘fatherly' – but with a much more complicated emotion than mere fraternal affection.

He grew slowly aware of music drifting from behind the door; a woman's voice was singing something about being killed softly, which Andrew couldn't understand, but there was something poignant and yearning in the song which spoke directly to his confused feelings and, finding it suddenly quite insupportable to be alone, he hammered on the door.

It was quite some moments before it was opened to reveal Kit in old jeans and a grubby jersey. Her hair was untidy and her face was streaked with tears.

He was still too shocked by his own revelation to realise that her appearance gave him a strange kind of satisfaction. In no fit state to analyse his emotions, he intuitively realised that they were both at this moment in a similar state of distress and he walked past her without a word into the sitting room. She went at once to the radio and switched it off. Roberta Flack was abruptly silenced and Kit looked at Andrew with an expression of despair.

‘It's that bloody song.' She took it for granted that he required some kind of explanation. ‘It was being played in the coffee bar when Jake chucked me. Whatever it was that someone said about the potency of cheap music is absolutely true. It gets me every time. Sorry.' She rumpled her hair, glancing about her as if some solution might be found in the familiar arrangement of the furniture, gave it up and looked more closely at him. ‘So what's your problem?'

‘Is Sin here?'

There was a brief surprised silence and then, in a moment of absolute mental clarity, Kit grasped the situation.

‘Oh hell,' she said. ‘This is all we need.'

He stared at her, still gripped by this sense of shared suffering. ‘I'm in love with her.' He sat down on the nearest chair. ‘I can't be but I am.'

‘Yes,' said Kit. ‘Yes, well it was only a matter of time, really, wasn't it? That you should see it for yourself, I mean. The thing was that you were so rooted in your image of yourself as a thoroughly married man that it never occurred to you that it might happen.'

He gazed at her – ‘Rather,' as Kit told Fliss later, ‘as though I were the oracle at Delphi' – amazed at her perception. She reached into the sleeve of her jersey, took out a handkerchief and blew her nose whilst he adjusted to this latest development.

A new thought occurred to him. ‘Does everyone know?' he asked anxiously.

She looked at him consideringly. ‘When you say everyone,' she began – and paused. It was clear that since he was in a state of shock she should proceed with caution. Andrew wasn't at all the kind of man who agreed with the modern casual approach to affairs and divorce and his recent revelation was clearly causing him a great deal of distress.

‘No,' she said gently. ‘Hardly anybody. Sin has been terribly careful . . .'

‘Do you mean that Sin
knows
?' He gaped at her incredulously.

Kit groaned quietly. That brief moment of clarity was rapidly blurring over and she felt faintly panicky. How would Sin want her to react to this? ‘I meant,' she said cautiously, ‘that Sin has been careful about showing her own feelings when you're out together. You know what I mean. After all, you never know who you might bump into and although Margaret knows what's going on—'

‘Sin? Can you possibly mean that Sin feels . . .?' He cast about for suitable phrases, this new shock completely unsettling him again. ‘Oh, no. I can't believe it. She's so young and so delightful but she couldn't possibly . . .' He shook his head. ‘She's been very sweet to me, of course . . .'

‘Oh, for goodness' sake,' cried Kit – ‘I shouldn't have,' she said later remorsefully to Fliss, ‘but I was feeling so absolutely bloody myself just then, thinking about Jake' – ‘do stop being so medieval and gentlemanly. She's been in love with you for ages, poor girl, and you rushing back to that tiresome old cow down in Wiltshire just when you've got poor old Sin all worked up again and thinking that you might love her after all.'

She paused to draw breath, glaring at Andrew, who was now on his feet and standing quite still, staring past her at nothing in particular. Clarrie appeared suddenly in the doorway. He was clutching a bottle of port in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

‘What the devil's going on?' he demanded testily. ‘People roaring and shouting all over the shop. Front door wide open . . .'

His bright eyes darted between them, puzzled and intrigued. His arrival defused the situation and Kit gave a short laugh and touched Andrew lightly on the arm.

‘Sorry,' she said. ‘Only it's all so crazy.'

‘What's crazy?' Clarrie came right into the room, and looked inquisitively at the dazed Andrew. ‘What's got into you?'

‘He's realised that he's in love with Sin,' said Kit brutally, ‘and he's come over all peculiar.'

Clarrie snorted. ‘Is that all?' he asked contemptuously. ‘Thought it was World War Three starting. Well, it's taken you long enough, old chap. So why the doom and gloom?'

Andrew looked at him with mingled despair and joy. ‘It's impossible,' he answered simply.

‘I tell you what's impossible,' said Clarrie crossly, shaking the newspaper. ‘Feller here says that once you open a bottle of port it must be drunk in eleven hours or it becomes undrinkable.
Eleven hours!
'

‘I shouldn't have thought you'd have found that too difficult,' said Kit tartly. ‘I recall that the contents of your last bottle of Scotch vanished in less than eleven minutes.'

‘That's
quite
different,' said Clarrie, undisturbed by the intended slur. ‘Port isn't my tipple, d'you see, but I do like a drop occasionally. Now this damned feller says I've got to drink it up in eleven hours.' He held the bottle up. ‘It's been open since Christmas,' he said plaintively. ‘It's ruined.'

‘Rubbish,' said Kit briskly. ‘It's a lie put about to make everyone drink more port. Tell you what, let's try a glass. Andrew could certainly use it by the look of things and since I merely drink for the after-effect it won't matter what it tastes like. At least that way it won't be utterly wasted.'

She went to fetch some glasses and Clarrie looked curiously at Andrew.

‘If you play with fire you get your fingers burned,' he murmured kindly.

Andrew gazed at him blindly, just as Paul after his revelation on the road to Damascus might have gazed unseeingly at some well-meaning chum.