In a Good Light (54 page)

‘Well, you have helped him, Elaine,' I said. ‘And you can't just vanish now.' I looked at the blotchy face of the woman who had once been the object of Donovan's fantasies, and the real shock – that their affair should have had such monstrous consequences – was momentarily buried under a wave of jealousy.

‘I know, I know,' Elaine was saying. ‘When he told me he was in love with me I was so happy, but I knew I'd have to tell him everything, and I just couldn't bring myself to
do it. And the longer I left it the worse it got. Our relationship was so new, and so fragile, and had so little encouragement from any other quarters.'

I flinched at this barb, but I couldn't deny the justice of it. ‘I'm sorry I wasn't more welcoming,' I said. ‘I should have been nicer. It was just possessiveness, I suppose.'

‘And then, this morning I looked out of the window and there was Donovan, come back to haunt me. I just freaked. I thought: I can't do this. I want to run away.'

‘But you won't, will you?'

‘Would it bother you that much?' Elaine asked me, with her frank, questioning stare. ‘You could go back to the way you were: just the two of you in your cosy little world.'

I thought about it for a second or two: that was all I needed. ‘No, I couldn't. Everything's changed.' I glanced at Donovan, immemorial source of all upheaval, and for a moment I saw in his devastated expression the child Donovan, watching his own mother jump from a high window. He reached for my hand and crushed it in his – a gesture that might have been love or anguish or apology or all three. ‘Christian loves you more than he loves me, Elaine.' The truth of this struck me forcefully, as did another insight, long overdue. Christian had never quite reciprocated my love in full measure. Even when he was at his lowest and most needy, I had always needed him more. I would do this last thing for him – I would bring him Elaine. ‘But I know him better. And I know he won't blame you for what happened to him. He might blame your husband, but how much can you really hate a dead man?'

Elaine let out a gusty sigh. ‘Right. I'd better go and do this, then.' Her hand rested on the door catch. ‘Will you come with me?'

I nodded. ‘Are you coming, Donovan?'

He looked at me absently, lost in thought. ‘What? Oh, no. If you don't mind. I think I'll just stay here, see if I can do something with this car. It's a bit dangerous sticking out like this.'

Snow was falling around us, impossibly, from a clear blue sky, as Elaine and I walked up the hill together. Not falling then, just blowing from roofs and treetops. At the corner I turned and saw Donovan, squatting to examine the stovedin rear of the Volkswagen: a practical man, glad to have something he could fix.

IN AUGUST 2002,
in what I came to think of as a perfect act of reconciliation, Christian James Fairchild (bachelor of this parish) and Elaine Sarah Harding (widow, St Andrew's, Oxted) were married by the Reverend Gordon Fairchild in the church of the Holy Trinity, at Knot, where nineteen years earlier, Stuart Sidney Harding (deceased) had avenged himself on the wrong man.

‘This is a special day,' Dad said, in his opening address to the congregation. ‘There are not many men who can say they have married their only son.'

Mum came home from Nepal for the wedding, but couldn't be persuaded to buy herself a new outfit for the occasion. ‘No one's going to be looking at me!' she protested. Which might have been the case, if only she hadn't decided to disguise one of her old dresses with a hideous hairy poncho, which looked as if it had come straight off a yak. She was planning to go back for another four-month stint
in Dhankuta, but it would be her last, she said, to Dad's great joy. She was starting to feel her age, and they needed younger, fitter workers.

Donovan sat beside me in the front pew, gorgeous and unfamiliar in a suit and tie. I couldn't help thinking, as I'd watched him dress that morning, that there was something heartbreaking about a man putting on cufflinks. The last time I'd seen him in a suit he was eighteen, setting off for work in the Cannon Street bunker. During Widor's ‘Toccata' he passed me a minute scrap of paper, torn from the Order of Service booklet, on which he had written one word:
Always
. I smiled, and kept it rolled up, warm in the palm of my hand.

‘Did you love her very much?' I asked, as we stood in the churchyard afterwards, waiting for the photographer to set up a shot without the wheelchair: Christian and Elaine sitting on a bench in front of the West Door.

He shook his head. ‘I can't remember. Probably not. Does anyone know anything at seventeen?'

‘Tactful reply,' I said, but I'm not sure I believe in the myth of youthful ignorance, or that we acquire wisdom incrementally, year by year.

The reception was held in the back room of the Fox and Pheasant. When Elaine realised how few people they wanted to invite she had scaled down her search for a venue. The men, following Christian's lead, whipped off their jackets and ties as soon as they were in the pub, and we sat down to a beer and a ploughman's and it was all so relaxed and informal and unlike a wedding, that I caught myself thinking: that's just how I'd do it, hypothetically speaking, in the unlikely event . . .

There was no best man and no father-of-the-bride, so
the only after-dinner speaker was Christian. ‘I won't stand up, if you don't mind,' he began, and then he made this extraordinary speech about the significance of the number three – the Trinity, the three states of matter, and the stability of tripods, for example – until I started to wonder if he hadn't had too much Guinness. But he ended by saying, ‘I'm very fortunate indeed to have the love and support of, not one, but three exceptional women: firstly, someone who has never put herself first: my mother, secondly, my sister, Esther, who has been the best friend and companion I could ask for, and finally my wife' – he paused to acknowledge the collective murmur of approval, and to subdue the lump in his throat – ‘who has brought me the sort of happiness I often dreamed of, but never expected to find . . .' Here he lost it completely and had to wag his hand to let us know he was done. The assembled company responded with noisy applause and much thumping on tables, and then the music came back on and Christian withdrew gratefully from the limelight.

When it was time for the newlyweds to leave Elaine made a point of throwing me her bouquet, then, two minutes later, wound down the car window and said that on second thoughts could she have it back as she wanted to press the flowers.

I moved out of the Caterham house three months ago, and I'm renting a tiny cottage in Ardingly at present, about two hundred yards from Donovan. I've quit the job at Rowena's to give some proper attention to my illustrating work. After mature reflection, I've decided it was only my indiscipline and lack of application that made it unviable as a career before. The quality of my stuff was never a problem, just the quantity, but Donovan's work ethic has inspired
me to greater industry, and I've finished
Jack's Journey
and fired off a dozen letters to different publishers offering my services as a jacket artist, while I try to get a commission for an illustrated book of my own, without Lucinda Todd and her forty per cent. Christian's money won't last for ever, so I'm giving myself two years, and if I'm not making a living by then it's Teacher Training College for me. Now
there'
s an incentive.

I still see Christian quite frequently, or we talk on the phone, but not by arrangement: only when the mood takes us. We've agreed not to fall into a fresh set of routines. The main casualty of my new situation is the weekly swim with Dad. It's just too far to be viable on a regular basis. He's been fine about it: apparently, my lack of technique in the pool was holding him back, and now he can clock up his thirty lengths in half the time.

One person I don't see as much as I'd like to is Penny. She's not exactly on the doorstep, and her weekends are taken up with Cassie, I suppose. Maybe she sensed that a resumption of a close friendship would have made Christian uncomfortable, or maybe she never intended any such thing once her task, as she saw it, was done.

Donovan has repeated his offer to accommodate me under his roof at least once a week. It's crazy, he says, paying for two places. We're in and out of each other's houses and beds all the time. He's offered to build me a studio at the bottom of the garden, overlooking the reservoir, so I can have some space and peace to work. His onslaughts of charm are hard to resist, so maybe one day. But for the moment I'm quite enjoying the novelty of having a place of my own. It makes me feel that at last I've left home and joined the ranks of grown-up people who know how to turn the water
off at the mains, or bleed their own radiators. We have an arrangement where we switch on the light above the front door to let each other know if we're in and want to be disturbed. It's supposed to safeguard our privacy and our rights as individuals not to be drawn in by the mere force of passion to a relationship that might become all-consuming.

I leave mine on, mostly.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781409063131

Version 1.0

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Century in 2004

Copyright © Clare Chambers 2004

Clare Chambers has asserted her right under the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

The author and publishers have made all reasonable efforts to contact copyright holders for permission, and apologize for any omissions or errors in the form of credit given. Corrections may be made in future printings.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

First published in the United Kingdom in 2004 by Century

The Random House Group Limited

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,

New South Wales 2061, Australia

Random House New Zealand Limited

18 Poland Road, Glenfield,

Auckland 10, New Zealand

Random House (Pty) Limited

Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

www.randomhouse.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099469186