Little Bits of Baby (22 page)

At first there was no reaction, just the fluttering of a petal in Marcus's breath, then the old nose wrinkled and took a sniff. It was a long sniff, alarmingly loud. It reminded Peter of the early morning yoga he had just persuaded Andrea to abandon, which in turn reminded him that he had led his wife to bed as soon as the last child was collected yesterday and had stayed there with her until making them a fried breakfast towards three in the morning. The nose breathed out again with a slight rattle and Marcus sighed,

‘Such a cheap, totally disarming smell.'

‘Hello, Marcus.'

Marcus's eyes remained shut.

‘Like those awesomely clean waitresses upstairs in Fortnums,' he went on. ‘The sort that wear their hair up and scrub the backs of their necks till they glow. Lily of the valley.'

‘Freesia.'

‘Well, I'm sure they're related.'

Peter set the freesia back in its vase.

‘I thought you were meant to be much worse,' he told him.

‘I am, but not that much. I keep my eyes closed to stop Miss Birch from asking my advice. She's perfectly capable of running the entire concern on her own, but now that I'm on the way out, the extraordinary creature feels she must consult me in my every waking moment on everything from a deal in Budapest to her new choice of paperclip. What colour's the freesia?' He opened his eyes but they had filled with a milky glue. Peter tried to bathe it away for him but then Marcus found the sudden brilliance too much and raised his hands as blinkers.

‘Marcus, I'm sorry I didn't come to see you last night.'

‘Perfectly all right, darling,' said Marcus. ‘Your time's your own.'

‘I know, but I said I'd come and I didn't. So, I'm sorry. It was just that Andrea …'

‘Is she learning that Donne piece for my funeral do?'

‘Yes. At least, I've told her to and she's got the book out.'

‘Not long to go.'

‘Nonsense.'

‘What about her anyway? Is she ill?'

‘No. Far from it. It's just that, well, ever since Robin's come home, we've started … Well. You don't want to hear this.'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘Well, it's childish but we seem to have started a second honeymoon.'

‘You mean you're going at it hammer and tongs?'

‘Yes,' Peter laughed. ‘I suppose we are.'

‘Splendid,' said Marcus and Peter knew he was quite uninterested. ‘That reminds me,' Marcus went on. Peter waited.

‘Yes?' he asked after a moment or two.

Marcus said nothing. His hands had been slipping down and his eyes had closed again. His breathing was slower and Peter was aware once more of the chirrups and clicks of the beige machine. A junior nurse knocked, came in, mouthed ‘excuse me' to Peter and took a reading off the machine. She marked this on the graph at the foot of the bed. Then she slipped a thermometer into Marcus's placid mouth and took his pulse. Smiling once more at Peter, she filled in pulse and temperature on the graph and left the room.

‘Marcus?' asked Peter, touching the old man's hand. Sweat glistened in the old runnels of his brow. Peter ran cold water over Marcus's face flannel, wrang it out and washed the sweat away. Marcus's head sank deeper into his pillows. As Peter was rinsing out the flannel at the sink, Marcus spoke again.

‘There's a man. He rings up every so often to find out how I am. We used to live together. I gave him a great deal of time and money and rather too much love. The love proved highly problematical and he's been avoiding me ever since. But I blame myself and I wish him well. His details are in an envelope in the drawer by my bed. If he hasn't been here before I go, I want you to ring him. I don't want him finding out from the nurses, that would be too hard. You'll have to contact him about the funeral arrangements in any case.'

‘Marcus, of course I will.'

‘Promise.'

‘I promise.' Peter touched the hand again and squeezed it but Marcus drew it away.

‘You'd better let Miss Birch get back to her telephoning,' he said.

Twenty-Four

‘That's right,' called Andrea. ‘All the chairs and tables against the walls. Gently, Flora. Gently. There. Now. All spread out and find a space. Make sure you can stretch your arms out without touching anyone.
Gently
, Flora! Now. When I start the music playing, you're all going to become seeds. Apple seeds in the cold earth, tight and small and blind. OK? Quiet now. Flora? Thank you.'

She took the record from its battered sleeve. The swan's movement from
Carnival des Animaux
, an old favourite much used for everything from butterflies dying in autumn to goldfishes circling bowls and even, in the days before yoga, her own stretch-and-tone exercises. She set it playing. Much scuffling followed and a thunder of knees on floor. She turned to face the class who had curled up like so many Muslims at prayer. The exception to the startling unanimity was Flora Cairns, ever the individualist, who lay on her side in a toppled lotus posture.

‘Now,' Andrea announced, ‘I'm a cloud full of rain and as I walk among you I'll make a rain noise. When you hear that near you you'll know it's time to wake up and start growing.' Andrea took a tambourine and walked barefoot amongst the seeds, gently rattling it. ‘Here come the raindrops,' she said, ‘falling like tears on your hard, little cases.' Seeds jerked awake. ‘It comes down through the soil to wake you. You swell. You stretch. That's it, Rupert. Slowly, Flora. Slowly. Now you push out a shoot to find the sun. That's the way. Gently push. And let a leaf open on it to feel the warmth. Mmm. Delicious, isn't it, Tom? Now another shoot. Slowly stretching. And another leaf. Now the shoot swells into a little bush. Here's some more rain,' – she shook the tambourine – ‘to get you growing.'

Peter came in at the back and stood watching her. She smiled across. He winked back. ‘Now you grow a, little more. That's right, Joshua. Sit up. That's right. Little saplings now. Grow some more. Up into the sun. Now you can feel. Now you can see. Big branches growing. Wind in your leaves. Come on, let's hear it.' Several children hissed, then more. Soon the room was alive with spitty whooshing sounds. ‘Not a storm,' said Andrea, ‘Just a breeze.' The wind obeyed her. ‘Now, touch branches here and there. You've turned into a forest of apple-trees. An orchard, I mean.' Jasper Browne giggled. ‘And keep stretching. Tiptoes now. More rain for you.' She rattled the tambourine. ‘And now, let's see you grow an apple each.' Palms curled into fist fruit. Andrea picked one. ‘Delicious,' she said, munching air. ‘Well grown, Emma!'

The swan finished and Andrea hurried over to switch off the record-player just as the next movement began.

‘Now,' she announced. ‘You're all relaxed and ready for story-time with Peter.'

Several children cheered and there was a scramble for their story pillows and once again gentle thunder as they dropped to the floor. Peter picked his way through the bodies and sat on a table at the front.

‘Faber's upstairs,' he told her, smiling.

‘Now?'

‘He dropped in on the off-chance. I'll read for twenty minutes if you like.'

‘Bless you,' she said.

‘Today's story is a very sad one about a little mermaid,' Peter told the class as she left the room. ‘It's by Hans Christian Andersen. Who can remember what else he wrote? Anyone? Joshua, you tell us.'

‘
The Snow Queen
,' said Joshua.

Andrea mounted the stairs in growing shame. She had been neglecting her friend. Ever since the evening when she walked out of the choir, she had thought only of Peter, and Peter, it seemed, only of her. The pair of them had rediscovered the heady selfishness of fresh love, setting aside every spare moment for one another. Not even setting aside, for that made it sound too premeditated and they had no choice. Whenever they weren't in the kindergarten (and even there they found it impossible not to touch each other at every opportunity) they were in bed. Or on the sofa, twice on the bathroom floor and even, this morning, in the kindergarten storeroom where Pilar Fernandez had surprised them just in time. They hardly saw Dob – sorry Robin – who only seemed to come home to bathe, change or sleep, if that. Peter had actually forgotten to visit poor Marcus the other day and Andrea, she realised now, had not so much as thought of Faber since the christening.

‘Faber, hello. I'm sorry.' she said and hugged him. He kissed her cheek.

‘Why sorry?' he said.

‘Well …' She stood back and sat in an armchair, feeling immediately that her new rapacity must somehow show – hot pink blotches on her neck and chest or tender toothmarks on her inside leg. ‘Coffee?'

‘No,' he held up a mug. ‘I've got some. You're glowing,' he went on. She sent Brevity to her basket because she had a tendency to make Faber sneeze.

‘We've just been being apple-trees,' she said. ‘Hot work.'

‘No,' he laughed, ‘I mean, you look happy. Sorry. I mustn't keep you.'

‘No. It's OK. Peter's reading to them. We've got twenty minutes or so.'

‘Where's Robin?'

‘Out. He's always out. I think he muttered something about a film.'

‘
Le Financier Aveugle?
'

‘That's right. I told him it was dreary.'

‘He hasn't told you where he's been all the time?'

‘No.' She grinned. ‘The thing is, I know it's awful but, Peter and I have …'

‘Andrea, he's been with me.'

‘Really?'

‘We're having an affair. Or does that sound too temporary? We're in love. Extremely in love.'

Andrea felt laughter welling up in her throat, jumped up and hugged him. Then she fell back onto the sofa, tugging him down beside her. His relief was palpable.

‘You don't mind?'

‘Why ever should I? I'm just thrilled it's you and not another broken reed like Jake.'

‘Bless you for that.' He hugged her and they laughed.

‘Can't you stop him from going back?' she asked.

‘He won't.'

‘But hasn't he sworn or anything?'

‘That's just it, Andrea. He isn't a monk.'

‘Well, I guessed that much. He's in training though, as some sort of novice, I think.'

‘No. He isn't anything.'

‘But he spent eight years there.'

‘He was very sick.'

‘Sick?'

She turned to him for confirmation. Faber took her hands in his.

‘They were nursing him. The business with Jake drove him to some sort of collapse.'

‘No.' She held his hands and stared away, following the patterns of the rug beneath their feet. ‘He never said. No one told us. God, I feel so
awful
!' She turned to Faber again. ‘Has he told you what actually happened back then?'

‘Yes,' Faber sighed. ‘It's more ambiguous than you thought. Apparently Robin had said nothing and it was Jake who made the first advance, which Robin duly rebuffed. The next evening Robin called round and Jake told him that he and Candida had been to bed and decided to get married.'

‘Poor Dob. Poor, poor Dob!'

‘He already knew someone with connections at Whelm – one of his theology tutors or something like that. I didn't quite grasp it. And he took himself off there.'

‘So he … fell ill after he'd got to Whelm?'

‘I think so.'

‘You're so calm,' she said, suddenly maddened.

‘How do you mean?'

‘Christ!' She rounded on him, regretting her emotion but unable to choke it now she had begun. ‘You don't seem to realise what you've just told me. Faber, I hadn't seen my boy for eight years.
Eight years
. You're not passing on gossip, you're telling me my son has gone mad and been locked away.' Embarrassed, she turned aside and banged a cushion back into shape as he apologized.

‘I'm sorry, hon, but you must see. I only met him a matter of days ago. The feelings he's stirred in me are strong –
so
strong – but they make everything before seem flat and unreal. Unimportant, even. You do see that, don't you? But I'm sorry. I should have told you more slowly. Maybe I should have made
him
tell you. I didn't think. I didn't realise.'

Andrea stood and walked to the garden window, tugging on her fingers.

‘Does he blame us very much?' she asked.

‘Why you?'

‘Well, we should have known. We should have interfered, got him away, found him proper help, medical help.'

‘Why?'

‘We're his parents.'

‘The monks cured him.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I didn't know him before but he seems wonderful to me.'

She hurried back to the sofa and sat beside him.

‘Sorry, Faber. That was tactless of me.'

‘Don't be such a berk.' He hugged her and she held him tight against her, trying to laugh. He spoke hesitantly over her shoulder. ‘Do you find him very changed, then?'

She pulled back and tidied her skirt briefly.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘At least, he seems so but maybe we're the ones who've changed and he's just stood still. It's a good change, though. He's calmer inside. It's rather scary, as though he wasn't trying any more. He used to be so competitive; always trying to make people listen. Poor Dob. Poor Robin. We didn't know.'

Faber touched her hands again.

‘I'm so glad it's you,' she said. ‘You'll look after him.'

‘Andrea, the two of us have scarcely met.'

‘But you'll look after him. I know. What about Iras?'

‘Cool as ever.' He sighed. ‘That frightens me slightly. I think she's punishing me.'

‘How so?'

‘She does all her talking to him rather than to me.'