The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicle) (43 page)

Sid caught her 53 bus at the corner of Trafalgar Square and went upstairs to a seat right in the front. She paid for her fourpenny ticket before she went up; now, with any luck, she’d be left in peace. She settled herself, blew her nose, and tried to be what Rachel would call sensible. But what started happening at once, as it nearly always did at times like these, was resentment, bitter and continuous, and on a scale that she utterly concealed from her darling R. She could understand that the Brig was going blind, and that this was awful for him, but why did that make Rachel the person who had to look after him? He was married, wasn’t he? What about the Duchy doing her share for a change? The idea seemed never to have occurred to any of them. The Duchy was perfectly capable of reading aloud to him, of taking dictation at a pinch, of helping him with his letters and conducting him about the place. Why should Rachel feel that her parents – both of them – depended upon her so entirely? Why did they not see that she was entitled to a life of her own? Rachel had even talked today of possibly having to give up her Babies’ Hotel, as the Brig would require too much of her time for her to do her work there properly. And if she did give that up, bang would go the only valid excuse she ever had for getting away during these interminable holidays. It was the English Victorian concept of the unmarried daughter that did it. For a second, Sid contemplated the idea of Rachel having married someone, and therefore escaping this onerous fate but the thought of Rachel being touched by someone else – a man – was, in fact, worse. There might have been children: Rachel would
never
be free of them. But if the husband had died or went off with someone else,
she
could have helped Rachel with the children – they could have lived together. Oh, no, they couldn’t: Evie loomed with her ill health, her dependence, her hopeless crushes on unsuitable people who were usually ignorant of Evie’s feelings for them and couldn’t be seen for dust if they were not. Evie had nobody in the world but her as she so often said. She never succeeded in sticking to any job for one reason or another; she was jealous of Sid’s life wherever it did not touch her own. She had no money, and they staggered on together on Sid’s salary from the school, her private teaching and the bits and bobs that Evie spasmodically contributed. They had been left the little house in Maida Vale by their mother and that was it. No, she was tied, too – tied, in real terms, more inextricably than Rachel. But she did not have Rachel’s goodness: she deeply resented her imprisonment, was not even sure that if Rachel were free, she would not behave very badly to Evie – leave her the house and tell her to get on with it. But Rachel would never agree to that. The image of Rachel’s face in the tea shop when she said, ‘I’d rather be with you than with anybody in the world,’ recurred. It had moved her so much at the time that she had resorted to a kind of music-hall jauntiness, but now, on her own, that painful declaration dropped deeply into her heart – was balm indeed. ‘She does love me – me, of all people – she has chosen to love
me
! What more can I ask than that?’ Not a damn thing.

The feeling of richness, the fortune of being so loved saw her through the hot and dreary evening – the fish pie Evie had made that tasted of wet laundry, her persistent questioning about what she had done all day, and even, when Sid was making some decent coffee, her burrowing in Sid’s handbag for cigarettes (she was always running out – too lazy to go and buy them for herself) and her finding the piece of walnut cake. ‘What on
earth
have you got this in your handbag for? Oh – walnut cake! I adore walnut cake did Rachel give it to you you don’t mind if I have just a teeny piece sure I know it’s bad for my ulcer but I do so want a little treat!’ then eating it with her pale, sly, anxious eyes fixed on Sid’s face for the slightest sign of rejection or injury. She gave neither: whenever she felt her pity or affection waning, she conjured back that unsteady, casual voice and was able to continue indifferently kind.

After supper they took the coffee tray up to the stuffy little sitting room, so full of the grand piano that there was barely any room for their two battered old arm chairs. It was so stuffy that Sid opened the french windows that looked onto the small back garden. It contained a huge lime tree and a small square of lawn that she had not mowed for weeks. Willowherb and Michaelmas daisies grew in the narrow beds against the black brick walls, and the gravel path that separated the beds from the lawn was full of dandelions and chickweed. It was not a garden they either used or enjoyed. The iron balustrade and steps that led down from the windows to the garden were rusty, the blistering paint needed burning off. If they were not invited to Home Place, Sid thought, she should really spend some of the holidays refurbishing things. She did not dare tell Evie of this infinitely more inviting possibility because her disappointment, and her ruminations about it if it did not come off, would be unbearable. And also, of course, Waldo might not go on tour. Jewish members of his orchestra were distinctly uneasy about going to some of the parts of Europe involved, and it looked likely that the tour would be curtailed, if not possibly cancelled. In which case, Evie would want to stay in London and she could not go. Sid turned back from the dusty warm air of the garden, to the dustier warmth of the room and asked if there was any news of the tour.

‘He won’t take me. I actually asked, this morning. I think it’s his wife. She’s terribly jealous, she’s always coming into the room when he’s dictating. Quite ridiculous!’

It was, actually, just that. But Sid reflected that the poor woman could hardly be expected to distinguish between one potential menace and another, since her husband was famous for his affairs – the sudden short ones, and the two mistresses he was known to keep, one of whom actually met him wherever he went abroad. Evie seemed to be the only person who did not know about the mistresses or, rather, who refused to believe what she called malicious gossip. What she really meant was that the wife, an ex-opera singer called Lottie, never gave it the chance to become
not
quite ridiculous. Waldo kissed any women who got near enough and so, of course, he had kissed Evie, who had been unable to resist telling Sid about it. This had been six months ago, and she now implied that the immense difficulties of the situation were all that stood between her and cosmic joy. (The difficulties included Waldo’s heroic nature: immense, sombre Lottie was, according to Evie, the cross he had to bear.)

Evie was lying back in her chair, on the arm of which an open box of coffee creams was precariously perched, and every now and then, she stretched out a hand, felt for a chocolate, and popped it in her mouth. She was extremely fond of sweets and subject to frequent bilious attacks that, like her sallow and greasy complexion, were never attributed to this predilection. She was perfectly determined in this, as in her emotional life, never to learn from experience. She is a monster, thought Sid, but she thought it protectively. Since Evie’s birth, when Sid was four, she had been conditioned to feeling that Evie was up against circumstances rather than her own nature – she had always been subject to ailments, and an early and bad attack of measles, acute appendicitis and peritonitis had enfeebled her frame and strengthened her powers of manipulation to the point where she could be certain of special consideration for whatever she did or didn’t do and resulting consequences kept her steadfast in her discontent.

She was yawning now – one yawn started before the first one had finished – and exclaiming, in that subdued foghorn voice common to yawners, that she was sure there was going to be a thunderstorm. ‘You said you’d cut my hair,’ she added. She passed a languid hand through her fringe. ‘It’s far too long, only I don’t want it cut so much as you did last time.’

‘Well, I’m not cutting it tonight. Anyway, I wish you’d go to a decent hairdresser: I can only do a pudding-basin job.’

‘You know I hate doing that sort of thing by myself. And you won’t let me go to yours.’

‘Evie, for the hundredth time, I don’t go to a ladies’ hairdresser. The place I go to doesn’t cut women’s hair.’

‘They cut yours.’

When Sid did not reply to this, she said, ‘If you had it shingled, a women’s hairdresser would do it.’

‘I don’t want it shingled. I simply like it very short. Shut up, Evie.’

Evie thrust out her lower lip in sulky silence, during which the distant rumble of thunder was distinct. Sid got up again and went to the window. ‘Goodness, I wish it would rain. Clear the air a bit.’

As Sid knew she would, Evie went on sulking until Sid offered a game of bezique, which was grudgingly accepted. Three games, or the best of three, Sid thought, and then I can escape to bed and write to her.

‘I couldn’t cut your hair with all this thunder about,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember Mama used to wrap all the knives in her mackintosh? She thought the rubber would deflect the lightning?’

Evie smiled. ‘She was terribly nervous. Ladders, and the new moon and black cats – poor little Mummy – she did have an awful life! I suppose we’ve inherited some of that. I have, anyway. I get terribly nervous about things. Like, you know, I thought you might not come back this evening. I thought Rachel might invite you down to Sussex, and you’d simply go.’

‘Evie! When have I ever done anything like that?’

‘Well, but you always might. And now, with Mummy gone, we’ve only got each other, after all. I’d never leave
you
, Sid. If I
do
marry anyone, I’d only do it if he said you could live with us.’

‘Darling, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

‘I know
you
think we never will, but extraordinary things can happen you know. Fate can intervene . . .’ The game was abandoned as Evie embarked upon her hopes and fears and – Sid was afraid, her sheer imagination – about Waldo. Two hours later they went to their beds.

When he had bathed and changed for dinner, Edward said he’d just nip out to the pub to get some cigarettes. Villy thought she had enough for both of them, but Edward said better be on the safe side. Really he wanted to ring Diana. He had to have a quick gin to get change for the machine that Mr Richardson had recently installed for the benefit of his customers. It was situated in a dark passage on the way to the gents’ – not really very private, but better than nothing. Diana answered the phone just as he was beginning to think she must be out.

‘It’s me,’ he said.

‘Oh! Darling! Sorry to be so long, I was at the end of the garden.’

‘Are you on your own?’

‘For the moment. Are you?’

‘I’m at the pub. In a passage,’ he added in case she thought that the pub was private.

‘Are you ringing up about tomorrow?’

‘Yes. I shall be fairly late, I’m afraid. Probably about nine. What about the boys?’

‘Ian and Fergus are still up north with their grandmother.’

‘And Angus?’

‘He’s with them. Till the end of the week. There’s just me and Jamie.’

‘Hooray!’

‘What?’

‘Hooray. Good. You know what I mean.’

‘I sort of think I do. I love you.’

‘Entirely reciprocated. Must go now. Look after yourself.’

As he drove back down the hill to Mill Farm, he remembered that he hadn’t bought any cigarettes; then he remembered that there were twenty Gold Flake in the front pocket of the car. He was in luck again! He wasn’t doing any harm as long as she didn’t know about it, but it would be devilish stupid to slip up on a little thing like that.