Nearest Thing to Crazy (3 page)

‘You’re sweet. And I know I’m being silly. Honestly, if anyone had told me before it happened that I’d react like this I’d have told them they were bonkers.’

‘But surely he knows how lucky he is? Surely he realizes how stupid he was and what he nearly lost?’

‘I guess. He has said as much, many times. But I just couldn’t bear it to happen again. I think everyone thought I was so strong and capable, but I’m not – not really, not without Patrick. Maybe if I’d had a career, or even a job, like you, I’d feel more confident, more of a person in my own right. But the house, the domestic bit – it’s the mundane routine of wifehood that defines me. Without that I simply don’t know who I am. How sad is that? And it’s not as if he was ever a bad husband. I mean he didn’t come home drunk and knock me about every night, did he? So I’ve got some things to be grateful for.’

‘I’m sorry, Sally. I’m so insensitive, really I am. I just don’t want you to be taken for granted. If Dan –’

‘But that’s the difference, isn’t it?’ she interrupted. ‘You don’t know what you’d do, how you’d feel, until it happens to you. And it won’t. You and Dan are welded together at the hip, anyone can see that.’

‘We have our ups and downs.’

‘Oh shush. Everyone knows you two are fine. More than fine.’

‘I suppose. But it’s not always a bed of roses. You know how it is.’ Dan and I were okay. In our own way. We just sort of got on with it. Wasn’t that normal marriage? Dan said you could hardly expect bells and whistles after thirty-two years together. We muddled along all right. But I knew what Sally meant about the house and Patrick being the axis of her world. When Laura went off to university Dan and I had a kind of readjustment crisis. I think we both felt a bit redundant, but I believe it was harder for me than it was for Dan. He had his career, his other life where he could feel useful and needed, whereas I, like Sally, felt pointless. We were in a sort of post-parent hinterland, with all the years of love, sweat and tears screwed up in the back of Laura’s wardrobe along with the cast-off teddies. No doubt each might come in handy for the grandchildren one day. I didn’t know whether Dan had wondered, like me, whether our relationship would be enough to make up for her absence. Were we enough for each other, just the two of us? Could we be all the things to each other that were necessary for a happy marriage? And what were those things? Friendship, love, mutual support, trust, great sex, financial security . . . Not much to ask, was it? Not much! And did everybody else’s marriages measure up to that, or were we all just muddling through, making the best of things? Just the easy questions in life . . . But we
were
muddling through pretty well, considering. We’d even managed a holiday together, just the two of us. And it had been lovely. And life had been so much better since I’d followed Dan’s suggestion and turned my hobby into a little business.

Sally sounded like she was making an effort to be cheerful.
‘Perhaps we can do something another time. Why don’t you ask
Amelia?’

‘I already did. But she couldn’t.’

Sally chuckled over her glass. ‘I bet you bloody asked her first, before me, didn’t you? Go on, admit it, I was second best.’

‘Honestly,’ I laughed back. ‘Relax.
Obviously
I would have got three tickets if she’d wanted to come.’

‘Maybe you should ask
her.
’ Sally said,
sotto voce
and nodding in
Ellie’s direction.

‘Ellie?’

‘Why not? Be neighbourly, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, I suppose it would.’

I found myself sitting diagonally opposite Ellie at lunch, and reflecting that spending a day with her could be really good fun. She laughed easily, an infectious belly laugh that was somehow unexpected, slightly incongruous but attractive nevertheless.

Everyone was asking her lots of questions: ‘What brought you to this part of the world . . . and how brave, when you don’t know anyone . . .’ But she was good at turning the questions around, almost methodically working her way around the table in order to find out about all of us; the usual stuff such as who we were married to, where we lived, what children we had, whether we were locals or not. In fact I did think she was rather adept at deflecting our curiosity. She used the fact that she was cultured and well-read as a way of diverting the more direct, personal questions. She chatted about exhibitions she had seen, books she had enjoyed and countries she had visited. I admired the way she seemed so relaxed and unselfconscious in the company of relative strangers.

I also wondered what she would be making of us, how she would be viewing us, through her writer’s eye. Amelia’s housekeeper was busy, bustling away in the background, making sure everything appeared at the right time, making sure that the kitchen remained immaculate, making sure that our hostess only had to worry about keeping up a constant patter of lively conversation. It was a theatre of sorts, and the uninitiated audience would presume that Amelia was playing the spoilt one: the rich-man’s over-indulged wife, the latest in an uninterrupted line of rich men’s wives captured in oil paint and pinned to the wall, required to be decorative not only in life, but after death too. On the face of it, I don’t suppose the casual observer would feel too sorry for Amelia, but I did. For instance, I knew that she never really felt the house was hers, or a home exactly. William’s mother was there, undead, but with her spirit already haunting everything Amelia did, along with the spectres of all the other Mrs Armitages. Newly widowed, she had been packed off to the dower house, from where she attempted to rule the latest incumbents of the big house. She managed to convey her censure in subtle little ways that we all pretended not to notice, such as asking you if you’d like
another
drink or hunting down
the
ashtray for a hapless smoker. She made us feel like naughty teenagers, which only served to make us
want
to behave badly.

William’s parents had lingered far too long in the big house, while Amelia and William and their fast-growing brood, escaping from London at weekends, had occupied the old servants’ quarters over what was now the pool house. It had been ridiculous, really, the way they’d crammed themselves into what was effectively an attic while the ageing parents rattled around the vast rooms. I suppose one could admire the way Mrs Armitage senior had perfected her demeanour of haughty disapproval, but she was quite scary. When I’d taken the saw to some horrid old shrubs in the border she’d crept up behind me, and then yelled in my ear, ‘I planted those twenty-five years ago and I thought they were looking rather fine,’ I nearly chopped my finger off.

‘I’m sure they’ll look even better once they’ve got space to stretch out a bit. And they were starving everything around them.’

‘Well I suppose you know what you’re doing. Of course I used to do all the gardening myself . . .’

When I told Amelia about it later, she just laughed. ‘My diplomatic skills have been both tested and honed, darling. The trouble is, she still thinks of this as her house. And who can blame the old trout, she was here for thirty-five years. She’s just a bit lost, really. All those years running everything, making all the decisions, feeling important and necessary, and now there’s nothing for her to do. I do feel sorry for her and sometimes I find myself thinking I’ll probably be just like her. I just wish she didn’t make me feel like an incompetent child – a houseguest who’s outstayed her welcome.’

It seemed to me, sometimes, that the house owned William and Amelia, rather than the other way around, and while it was indeed a beautiful place to live, it came at a high price.

At coffee the conversation turned to schools, as it invariably did, and Amelia said that they were hoping Lucy, their youngest, would get a place at Wycombe Abbey.

‘My old school,’ Ellie said.

‘Really? Mine too,’ said Amelia. ‘Though I don’t suppose we would have been there at the same time.’
‘No, probably not,’ she said.

In reality it was hard to tell how old Ellie was, but I imagined she was probably at least ten years younger than me, so early forties maybe. And there was that number plate of hers. Of course she might be younger and have worn rather badly, or older and have worn rather well.

When it was time to leave, everyone around the table had taken her telephone number, promising future invitations: lunches, suppers, even shopping trips, if she fancied it, ‘sometime’. And I felt really pleased for her that she was slipping so effortlessly into our little group.

On the way back she seemed to be making a particular effort to be warm towards me and I must admit I rather liked this feeling of having my friendship overtures reciprocated so enthusiastically.

‘I want to know all about you,’ she said, smiling at me from the passenger seat. ‘Tell me again exactly where you live? Oh my God you’re in that gorgeous cottage down the road from here? The one with the beautiful garden? Every time I drive past it I slow down to look at it – to envy it. You’re
so
clever. I wouldn’t have a clue what to do. I haven’t had much time for gardening, but I always thought it would be something I’d enjoy in the future.’
‘I feel lucky, really, that finally I’m getting paid to do something I love. Amelia’s been very kind, getting me a few commissions here and there. You know what it’s like, word of mouth, things lead on . . .’

‘It must be so satisfying, nurturing things, knowing that you’re leaving something behind for future generations, a bit like children.’

‘Maybe. But frustrating too. Unlike children, you don’t always get to see them fully grown.’

‘No. I s’pose not. Did I hear you say you had a daughter?’

‘Yes, Laura. She’s at university in Birmingham.’

‘That’s very grown up.’

‘Twenty-one in January. I can barely believe it. And you?’

‘No, sadly not. Never happened for me, which is probably just as well. I don’t seem very good at doing settled domesticity.’

We’d reached her house and I pulled into the drive. I was just about to mention the garden day when she said, ‘Listen, I don’t feel like going back to work this afternoon, why don’t you come in for a cup of coffee and I can show you the garden? Maybe you can tell me what you think I should do with it.’

I glanced at the dashboard clock. Ten past three. Actually I could spare a bit of time. Dan wouldn’t be back until 7.30 and I’d only got a few non-vital jobs to attend to before that.

‘Why not.’

‘Great.’

I was so busy looking out of the French windows onto the flat expanse of uninterrupted new lawn that I didn’t notice that instead of putting the kettle on, Ellie was unscrewing the top from a chilled bottle of white wine. I must have seemed a bit surprised.

‘What the hell!’ Ellie laughed. ‘We’re celebrating new friends. I’m really happy to be here and especially to have met you – a kindred spirit!’

‘Me too. It’s going to be great having you here livening us all up.’ I smiled and took the proffered glass, and then we stepped outside. The dog, freshly released from imprisonment in the kitchen, raced around the perimeter fence, sniffing and yapping with excitement. The sun’s warmth washed over Ellie’s terrace and so we drifted towards the slatted wooden table and chairs.

Ellie hooked one of her long, lean legs onto the chair beside her and offered me a cigarette, which I declined, before lighting one for herself. She closed her eyes as she exhaled. ‘Hmm, isn’t this just heaven?’

At last the dog, satisfied that the boundary was successfully patrolled, had shut up and was now sitting quietly by its mistress’s chair and eyeing me suspiciously.

‘So peaceful. I just can’t hear anything, oh, except for that tractor throbbing away somewhere and the sparrows – I think they’re sparrows – chattering to each other. At first I found the quiet really eerie. At night, in the dark, when all the lights are off, and there’s no moon, it’s like being swaddled in black felt.’

‘I know what you mean. It takes a bit of getting used to, after the city. I should imagine it will be good for you . . . for your work . . . to have the peace and quiet.’