The Juniper Tree (23 page)

Bernard had not been to see me in the psychiatric hospital. The doctors may have thought it might upset me to see him because one day my special doctor asked how I felt about seeing Bernard, did I feel up to it? I said I thought it was time we had a talk because I was beginning to imagine all kinds of horrors. Although I had had a few brief notes from him, they were extremely cold. So it was arranged that Bernard was to come.

One of the visiting hairdressers attended to my hair and the nurses manicured my hands, which had done no work for weeks – even Miss May would have approved of them. They went through my clothes and chose the ones they considered the most becoming, then opened my jewel case. They fell at once on the pink topaz ring with its sparkling diamonds, my engagement ring, but I said, ‘No, no, put it away,’ and they exchanged glances. Sadly they shut the suitcases and put them back in the cupboard and the little party was over.

In the early afternoon Bernard came, looking as proud and handsome as ever, but far from happy. He said, ‘Poor child, you’ve lost a lot of weight,’ and put his arm round me for a moment; but he didn’t kiss me so I knew it was definitely the end, particularly when he asked if he could sit down and chose a chair far away from me. He asked me trite questions. Was I comfortable? How did I feel? Was I satisfied with my treatment? That kind of thing. Suddenly my eye fell on some vases containing water the nurse had left for the flowers my husband would bring. She knew I liked to arrange the flowers myself. I said rather spitefully, ‘Bernard, the nurse will be disappointed you didn’t bring me any flowers. Look at the vases she left, three, all different sizes.’

Bernard appeared stricken. ‘My God, I’m sorry. I forgot about flowers with so much on my mind. Bella, I’m so miserable with Gertrude and Johnny both gone. There is nothing to live for, nothing. Going back to that house of memories is hell. I’ve put it up for sale, you know.’

I said I didn’t know and he said there were a lot of things I didn’t know and spoke of my ‘mental instability’ and not wanting to shock me, though he’d spoken to my mother about his plans. ‘I think you misjudged that woman, Bella.’

Then he told me that we could never live together again; now Johnny had gone there was no point in it. He added he was most likely leaving the country, going to Brussels and becoming more or less a sleeping partner in the London gallery. Of course I’d still have my income as a director and there would be money from the sale of the house so that I could buy a place of my own, ‘something better than that little shop you used to live in. By the way, I was surprised when I saw that magnificent room of yours in the basement. Extraordinary I knew nothing about it.’

I said, ‘Would you have been interested? Peter helped me make it, did you know?’

‘Yes, so he told me. I’d no idea you were such friends. When I move on to Brussels he’s starting up on his own. He should be all right; he has plenty of connections and is very good at his work. I offered to set him up in Brussels, but he preferred to stay here.’

He unfolded himself from the uncomfortable hospital chair and stood beside me for a moment with his hand on my shoulder. ‘Well, I’m sorry things have turned out as they have, my dear, but I’ll keep in touch and let you or your mother know what’s happening.’

He turned towards the door but before he could open it I caught him by the hand and cried, ‘We were happy in Brussels, weren’t we, Bernard, and in Madrid too?’

We were standing close together but he freed his hand and moved away and said, ‘If you say so, dear. Yes, of course we were happy,’ and he was gone.

I thought how strange the room looked, as if the air had been burnt away. My hand went up to my scar as it used to, but I forced it down and I thought, ‘If he can start again, so can I. And I’ll chop up Bernard’s chair!’

The nurse came in with six bunches of carnations and said, ‘They are from your husband.’ He’d already forgotten that I disliked carnations.

I asked the nurse to arrange them. They had no scent at all.

Chapter Thirty-Two

C
hristmas came and went. It wasn’t too bad being in a psychiatric hospital because everyone tried to make the best of it, particularly the nurses. I was recovering all the time and now worked in the hospital library and had long talks with my fellow patients. Some of the women were very odd but most of the men I met in the library appeared normal, but sad. Then I started to go home for the weekends – well, not home, but to my mother’s house. She hated the house as much as I did by now, so we drove about looking for houses for sale and eventually found one we liked in Chiswick. It stood in a tree-lined road not far from the river, a large Victorian house with four floors and quite a big garden with a magnolia tree just coming into bud. Mother was very taken with the attics. They had already been converted into a self-contained flat and Marline and I would live in the lower two floors and the semi-basement could be let. It was the magnolia tree that decided me to buy the house – I’d so missed the one I’d planted in the Twickenham garden – the tree and the large rooms, some of them with parquet flooring and french windows leading to the garden. Bernard had already put a large sum in my bank, part of the proceeds of selling the Richmond house and my mother gave me £20,000 so we were able to buy the house without taking out a mortgage.

Although Bernard’s house was already sold, my furniture and personal belongings were still locked up in Bella’s room. This worried me a lot. It was frustrating being imprisoned in the hospital when there was so much to do and only the odd weekend to sort things out. It preyed on my mind so much that the drugs I was taking had to be increased and I was lectured by the doctors. Then dear Peter came to the rescue. He moved all my things to the Chiswick house and decorated it just as I wanted it, casting all his own work aside at an important time for him, when he was starting up on his own.

Then my mother had the good idea that we should let the basement to Peter, whom we knew and trusted, rather than to some stranger. He had no permanent place of his own yet and was sharing flats with various friends and was working under difficult conditions, so it all fitted perfectly. Mother came to love and depend on Peter and, later on, so did I.

It was spring when I left the hospital finally. Peter and Mary came to fetch me. I was really sorry to say goodbye to some of the doctors and nurses. They had been so kind to me and built me up into a human being again – I hoped a stronger and better one than I’d been before.

Marline and my mother were waiting for me in our new home. It was completely finished now, even the kitchen was stocked with food and a celebration lunch was laid out in the dining-room and drinks in the drawing-room. It was the first time I’d had my own drawing-room and dining-room; the ones in the Forbeses house had never seemed like mine. There were a few things from there scattered about, things Bernard or Miss Rose had thought I’d need like linen, china, and carpets, also some really beautiful oriental rugs and, oddly enough, the two beds with the elaborate headboards. Everything else had been sold except the paintings and books and the trunks containing Gertrude’s things. Peter said he’d given Bernard’s special chair to Mrs Hicks to save me the bother of chopping it up. No one mentioned what had happened to the gruesome old chest.

It was like entering a different world when I was shown mother’s attic flat with its built-in furniture, fitted carpets and, in the ultra-modern kitchen and bathroom, tiled floors. The sitting-room was a bit stark, but the black leather buttoned chairs were more comfortable than they looked and there was a view of the river, which pleased my mother very much. It was very different from her Kilburn home, but she said it was exactly what she wanted.

After I’d become used to the joy of living in my own home I grew a little restless. I felt I needed part-time work, so Mary suggested I became a buyer for her. This suited us both and left me plenty of time to look after Marline and do the cooking. A sturdy miner’s daughter, the mother of five children came in to do the cleaning. I kept in touch with Miss Rose and sometimes worked in the gallery when they needed extra help, and I became quite friendly with Bernard’s partner, a wise, elderly Jew. Miss Rose always warned me if Bernard was around but that wasn’t often. I think he dreaded a meeting, but liked to write from time to time and even ask my advice. At first I was upset when I saw the Belgian stamp and his writing on an envelope; but later on they meant little to me. It was the same with Stephen’s letters from America; I’d leave them on the mantelshelf for days before I opened them. Sometimes the letters of my husband and ex-lover lay there together. I used to answer them eventually and should have missed them if they didn’t come.

Besides the semi-basement we let Peter use one of the upstairs bedrooms that had a good light to do his restoring work in. The strange thing was that we seldom met on the stairs and, except on Sundays when we all ate together as a family, we didn’t see much of him, but if anything went wrong, my car not starting for instance, he was always there to help. Sometimes, when he wasn’t too busy, we went to sale rooms together and he helped me buy things for Mary and sometimes myself. Occasionally we went to a film or play together. I knew he was fond of me, but sometimes wondered if he liked Mary better. He quite often went to her flat in the evenings and she’d cut his straight fair hair, she’d do it rather well, too, and she’d been known to iron his shirts, and they’d share a bottle of wine together as she ironed. We were never intimate like that although I had known him for over five years. He told me that he used to watch Gertrude and me in the garden together and I remembered how we had once seen his pale face looking down from his high window. We called him the prince in the tower, which suited him very well. Mother said, ‘I hope we aren’t going to lose that nice young man to Mary. The house wouldn’t be the same without him.’ And she was quite right, it wouldn’t.

One morning, when I delivered some things to Mary’s stall, she said casually, ‘I’m thinking of going to Spain with Peter – Barcelona, then perhaps Madrid. We could visit the flea market, the Rastro, that Bernard wouldn’t allow you to go to.’

I said, ‘Yes, I’m sure you will enjoy yourselves,’ and went home very thoughtfully.

As I entered the house, I could hear some Scarlatti drifting up the basement stairs, so knew that Peter was working down there. I slowly followed the music down the stairs and there was Peter, his tall body bent over a frame he was gilding with gold leaf, the gold still hanging, all shaggy. When it was finished he put it in the sunny area to dry and then turned and saw me standing there very still.

I said, ‘Peter, is it true that you are going to Spain with Mary?’

He looked surprised. ‘Did she say I was? If so, it’s the first I have heard of it.’ Then he suddenly smiled. He didn’t smile often but when he did, his face really lit up. He asked, ‘Would you mind if I did?’

I snapped, ‘Would I mind? Of course I would.’ And then, for the first time, I realized how much he meant to me and I could see by his face that he felt the same about me. Later he told me that he had loved me for years, ever since he first saw me at the Forbeses house, but I was always so engrossed with them he knew he hadn’t a chance, and then there was my travesty of a marriage which gave him the chance to help in small ways.

‘Small ways?’ I said. ‘Bella’s room would have been nothing if it hadn’t been for you. I’m afraid I rather took your help for granted. You spoke for me at the inquest, so Mary said. Do you call that a small thing?’

Actually Mary was planning to go to Madrid, but not with Peter, with a man she had been in love with for years. He was married to a paraplegic wife and all they had was an occasional holiday together. It was strange that I’d known her for a number of years but never knew she had a lover before.

We settled into the house in Chiswick very well, with mother in her uncluttered flat and the rest of us below, living the lives that suited us. Marline was happy at home, going to a school she liked and the proud owner of a dog, a Welsh sheepdog which she spent a considerable amount of time training, but all it did was round up other people’s dogs. Peter had all the work he wanted and after the first year had to take on an assistant. I tried trimming his hair but wasn’t very good at it – mistakes in cutting show up so on straight hair – but I allowed no one else to iron his shirts. When Bernard and I had been living apart for two years we obtained a divorce and Peter and I were able to marry, which was just as well, because I’d already started a baby. It was really lovely being pregnant with a kind husband to look after me.

One day when Mary and I were talking over cups of coffee in my kitchen she asked me to see the contents of a small house that was being sold, then immediately corrected herself. ‘Oh no, you won’t want to go, it’s in Richmond.’

‘Of course I don’t mind going to Richmond,’ I said. ‘There hasn’t been any need to go, that’s all. Tell me about it.’

She said the house, or rather cottage, was in a little backwater off George Street and had belonged to an elderly couple who had died. The son had told her there were a few antiques she might be interested in. He mentioned a small collection of glass paperweights, china 1920 pierrots, Rockingham poodles, ships and birds in glass cases. Not wildly interesting, but worth seeing.

My car was being serviced, so I made the journey by train. Everything looked the same: the depot of derelict buses on the right as the train drew in; the bookstall and flower shop on my left as I was leaving the station; the pet shop and the shop we used to call ‘the useful shop’, with a wonderful display of brass handles, knockers and knobs of all kinds. I soon came to the cottage I was looking for, one of a row with tiny gardens in front, and the bereaved son waiting outside with the door open behind him. My business with him was soon settled. I bought everything he offered, including some theatre tinsels of Victorian actors in their original frames, which I knew Mary would be pleased with, and he agreed to deliver them to her flat that evening. The furniture was already sold to a house clearer. It was particularly ugly Edwardian and had an unpleasant smell.