The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicle) (41 page)

‘And if Louise doesn’t like it she can lump it.’

Without a word, Polly got out of the bath and wrapped herself in the threadbare bath towels that the Duchy felt were good enough for children.

‘You haven’t washed your other foot!’

‘I don’t want to stay in the bath with you. You’re too horrible. First you’re against everybody, then poor old Wills, and now Louise. You’re getting like Richard III.’

‘I’m not!’ When Polly didn’t reply, she said, ‘I’m really not. Give me your other foot. I’ll wash it for you.’

‘How do I know you’re not going to drag me off my balance? You’re in a very treacherous state of mind. I don’t trust you as a matter of fact.’

Polly was perfectly right, of course. She was horrible. Angry things just mounted up in her until some of them had to come out – an explosion of nastiness, and then she felt awful, like now, ashamed and confused to be so much worse a person than Polly, who never seemed to have bad feelings about anything and certainly not about people. ‘I wouldn’t drag you,’ she muttered. Her eyes were full of scorching tears. A grey, horny foot was thrust over her left shoulder.

‘OK,’ Polly said. ‘Thanks.’

Clary washed with tremendous care. ‘I’m trying not to tickle,’ she said humbly, when Polly wriggled.

She didn’t want to be too nice, which would make Clary cry more, so she said, ‘I know you are.’

‘I bet Jesus tickled the disciples’ feet when He washed them. There were so many of them, He would have got careless.’

‘Bet they didn’t dare laugh, though. Have you noticed how in books people do things with hair that you never could do?’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, like Mary Magdalene drying Jesus’s feet with it, or heroines embroidering handkerchiefs. I bet when you ironed them the hair would just sizzle away. And Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. You couldn’t climb somebody’s hair like a rope – it would be agony.’

‘I suppose it’s just that in books you can say what you like.’

‘They ought to stick to real things,’ Clary said, getting out of the bath. ‘When I’m a writer, I shall. I shan’t write any old nonsense that doesn’t work.’

‘You are so lucky having a career! Don’t forget your plate.’ Clary looked at the plate. One minute she was lucky, the next minute, the reverse.

‘I was going to forget it,’ she said sadly. ‘You might have shut up about it.’

‘Put it in,’ advised Polly. ‘Then take it out again, and I won’t say anything. That’ll be sort of true.’

Clary picked it up and put it in with an audible click. Then she took it out again. Then she looked at Polly. ‘
You
wouldn’t do that, she said. ‘You’d stick to the truth.’

Their eyes met, and Polly said, ‘Sorry! I suppose I would. But you don’t have to wear it.’

‘But if you had, you would.’ She put the plate back in. ‘I admire your character enormously,’ she said even more sadly. The plate hurt immediately: it really spoilt meals. She picked up her towel and sneezed.

‘You won’t have to wear it for ever, and I think you’re frightfully brave about it. You’ll end up as beautiful as the day.’

‘But not good, like all those princesses in the books. More likely to be a wicked ugly sister. Or cousin.’

‘Tell you what. When they’ve started their dinner, let’s take our supper to the orchard and have a midnight feast in the tree.’

‘That’s a brilliant idea! We’ll have to wait till they’ve said good night to us. We’ll have to pretend to eat the food and hide it in our beds, and
then
go out.’

They were friends again.

Rupert fairly reeled out of his father’s study, started to go upstairs to Zoë, and then changed his mind and went to the drawing room, which he knew would be empty since the Duchy never used it until after dinner. It was cool and full of the comfortingly familiar scent of sweet peas: the Duchy adored them, and there were always large bowls crammed with them about the house in the summer. The blinds were still drawn against the sun: the Duchy, who lamented the room not facing north, kept it well shrouded until all danger of sunlight had passed. He went to the window and released the blind, which flew up with a snap revealing a tumultuous orange and purple sunset and, as he watched, a train, like a small black toy, puffed steadily from right to left in the distance. He badly wanted to talk to somebody, but not to Zoë since he could imagine exactly what she would say and it would not resolve his dilemma. ‘The Brig has asked me to join the firm.’ ‘Oh, Rupe! What a marvellous idea!’ ‘He has only asked me to consider it. I haven’t made up my mind.’ ‘Why ever not?’ And so on. She would see it only in terms of a relief from financial anxieties. She would not for one moment consider what it would be like to stop being a painter of any kind, and become a businessman – something he would dislike and be no good at. On the other hand, it wasn’t as though he was painting much now, anyway: in term time he was too fagged from teaching all day and the holidays were more or less spent with, or on, Zoë and the children. It was certainly true that their car was absolutely on its last legs and, due to Clary’s extremely expensive dental treatment, he could see no way of getting a new one in the foreseeable future. And when Zoë could drive, she would want a car more than ever.

If he joined the firm, he wouldn’t have to worry about things like getting a new car. He could paint in his holiday. No, he couldn’t. He’d only get a fortnight a year, plus Christmas and Easter, and if he couldn’t manage to paint in the long school holidays, he certainly wouldn’t manage in one short one. Zoë would expect to be taken somewhere exotic – skiing or something like that. He thought fleetingly of the Sunday painters, and even more fleetingly of the lengths to which Gauguin had gone to be a painter. Perhaps I’m not a real painter, at all, he thought. It needs to be put first, and I never do that. Better to give it all up. He wished that Rachel was back from London. She would be the best person to talk to. Either of his brothers might have views either way about it that pre-empted them from giving him good advice. ‘Don’t expect you to make up your mind at once,’ the Brig had said. Think about it. Serious decision. I needn’t say how delighted I should be if you agree, though.’ The poor old boy was having to give it up by degrees, although he’d fight his blindness all the way. He didn’t want what he described as outsiders. But it was difficult to go into a job feeling that your greatest, if not only, asset was that your name was Cazalet. The drawing-room grandfather clock struck seven. He’d have to go up if he wanted a bath before changing.

He’d planned not to say anything to Zoë, who was lying on their bed reading yet another novel by Howard Spring, but when he went to kiss her forehead and greet her she simply said, ‘Fine, thank you,’ without taking her eyes from her book.

Some childish urge to startle her, get her attention, made him say, ‘The Brig has asked me to join the firm.’

She dropped her book on her stomach. ‘Oh, Rupe! What a marvellous idea!’

‘I haven’t made up my mind yet. There’s plenty of time to think about it.’

‘Why haven’t you?’

‘Made up my mind? Because it’s a very serious decision and I’m not at all sure that I want to change my profession.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Because it’s something I would be doing all the time. For the rest of my life,’ he began patiently, but she sat up, threw aside the eiderdown and ran to him, throwing her arms round his neck and saying, ‘I know what it is! You’re afraid you wouldn’t be any good at it. You’re so . . . ’ she searched for what, to her, would be the right word, ‘so awfully . . .
unassuming.
You’d be a marvellous businessman. Everybody loves you. You’d be wonderful at it!’

She had bathed and cooled after her bath, and her skin smelled of rose geranium. He realised now that her charms touched him, not with excitement but more with the poignancy of their fidelity. He kissed her with a tenderness she did not recognise and said, ‘I’m off for a bath. One thing. This is a secret. I don’t want to discuss this
en famille
tonight or at all. So will you keep mum?’

She nodded.

‘Truly, Zoë? You promise?’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ she said in her haughty voice. It did not always suit her to be treated as a child.

As she made up her face and dressed for dinner, she thought of all the things that would be better if Rupert stopped being a schoolmaster and became like his brothers. They could have a nicer house – she loathed Hammersmith – get a decent car, Clary could be sent to a good boarding school (‘good’ showed that she cared for Clary’s welfare), they could go out in the evenings more, since Rupert would not be so tired. She would entertain for him – she would give wonderful dinners which would help him in his career, but most of all, relieved of the constant worry about money and not having enough of it, he would become the carefree, lighthearted Rupert she had married. Because somewhere she knew that their marriage was not exactly as it had been four years ago, although, heaven knows, it was not
she
who had changed: she had never, for a second, stopped taking trouble with her appearance which she could see – look at Sybil and Villy, and worst of all, Villy’s pathetic sister – was what happened to most women, but in spite of everything she did about it she could sense fleetingly, and with a terror that congealed to resentment, that Rupert did not respond to her with the same unthinking passion that he once had. There had been times when she had felt that she was resistible, something she had thought she would never be. He was nicer to her in public, and less to her when they were alone. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling,’ or ‘Zoë, sometimes you are a silly ass!’ he had used to say sometimes around the family table, and how hurt she had been! But their rows about that sort of thing had resolved themselves in bed – marvellously, wonderfully – and in the end it had always been she who had apologised for being silly, for not understanding what he had meant. She had always been prepared to admit her faults. But he never said those sorts of things now; it was ages since he had teased or snubbed her, and the sweetness of the inevitable reconciliation was also distant. Of course, one day she would be old, and then she supposed that things would be different, but that was ages away – she was twenty-three and women were supposed to become more attractive up to the age of thirty, at least, and she would probably last longer because she had always taken such trouble. She examined her face now with a stern, dispassionate care: she would be the first to find fault with it, but no fault could be found. All I want is for him to love me, she thought. I don’t care about anything else. She was not aware that the secret lies are the ones that endure.

After he got back from golf Hugh read to his father for an hour and then played some patient, very hot tennis with Simon. His serve was still very erratic, but his backhand was becoming more reliable. Sybil came and watched them for a bit, but then she went away to bath and feed Wills who was getting hungry and restive. Hugh missed her presence and the midges, clouds of them like animated haloes round their heads, were distracting. ‘I think I’m going to call it a day, old boy,’ he said after the second set. Simon agreed with the show of reluctance that was proper to his pride but, actually, in spite of an enormous tea, he was extremely hungry and supper, since he was having it in the dining room, wouldn’t be for ages. He sloped off to the kitchen, to see what he could coax out of Mrs Cripps, who favoured him and admired his appetite. Hugh had left him to wind down the net and collect the balls and racquets and wandered towards the Duchy’s rose garden, where he could see her in the distance wearing her hessian apron and carrying a trug, dead-heading her beloved roses. But I don’t want to talk to her now, he thought, waved and turned right on the cinder path that led back to the house. Passing his father’s study he could hear him talking – a pause, and then Rupert’s voice. He climbed the steep back stairs and went to their bedroom, the room in which Wills had been born – in which the little unknown baby had died. There was a tidy dazzlingly white litter of baby things at one end: Sybil must be bathing him. Usually he loved to see him in his bath, but this evening he wanted to be alone.