The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicle) (50 page)

‘I don’t know whether he will.’

There was a brief silence while they both recognised that they were back on the brink. Then Hugh said, ‘I think it would be sensible if we had a contingency plan.’

‘About Rupe?’

‘About everything.’

Edward looked at his brother, at his anxious, honest eyes, at the nervous tic starting now beneath his right cheekbone, at the black silk stump resting on the corner of the table and then back to his eyes again. Hugh’s expression had not changed. He said, ‘You think I’m a windy obstinate old bugger, but you know I’m right.’

Zoë had got herself into a rather sticky position. The solution was perfectly simple and perfectly dull, and she regarded it as a last resort. Her mother’s condition had improved enough for her to get up for part of the day, which meant that Zoë had to spend hours more time with her than she had had to do when Mrs Headford had been confined to her bed. It also meant that Dr Sherlock had far less reason for his visits, although he still made them. The first three days, when Mummy had really been quite ill, Zoë had made her lightly boiled eggs and frightfully thin bread and butter – even managed to stew some prunes – made her bed each day, and cleaned the bath – horrible old jobs that it made her tired even to contemplate each morning as she lay on the uncomfortable sofa in the sitting room. She only got out to change their library books; Ruby M. Ayres for her mother, who required something light, and whatever she could find for herself – Somerset Maugham and Margaret Irwin chiefly. She had been deeply bored, and the only highlights of the day had been Rupert’s telephone call in the evening, a strict three minutes because the Duchy regarded the telephone, especially toll calls, as an indulgence,
and
the visit from Dr Sherlock. Dr Sherlock was a man of about forty, she thought, as his hair, which was thick and wavy, was brindled with grey. He was unusually tall with brown eyes and a soothing voice, and Zoë noticed that her mother made great efforts to be what she called tidy for his calls. The first time he had called, she had shown him into her mother’s bedroom where she lay propped up in bed in her peach-coloured bedjacket edged with white swansdown, shut the door on them and quietly gone back to the crowded little sitting room to tidy it up. Her mother had moved to a smaller, cheaper flat after Zoë had married and as she had not brought herself to part with anything very much, the place was overflowing. There was nowhere for Zoë to put her clothes, or even the bedclothes she used for the sofa at night: she had to keep her make-up in the tiny little dark bathroom. Every flat surface was filled with photographs – mainly of Zoë at every stage of childhood and up to the present day. The walls, that were mostly a peachy pink – the colour her mother had learned from Miss Arden was the most becoming for women – were now discreetly dirty and toned in with the soupy net curtains that covered every window, subduing and suppressing all daylight. It was a fourth-floor flat in a mansion block; to go out you had to use an incredibly slow cage-like lift that was frequently stuck on another floor because the tenants had failed to close the stiff and ponderous gates. It was like a prison, Zoë thought, and just as she thought it, Dr Sherlock came into the room.

‘Well, Mrs . . .’

‘Cazalet.’

‘Mrs Cazalet, your mother’s making a good recovery. I’ve told her she must stay put for a few more days, at least. She should have light diet – chicken, fish that sort of thing . . .’

‘I’m not much of a cook – you don’t think she should be in hospital?’

‘No, no. I’m sure she’d far rather be looked after by you. You
can
stay a few days, can’t you? She seemed rather anxious about that.’

‘A few days. My husband’s in the country – with the children.’

‘Ah, I see. And you don’t want to leave them for too long.’

‘Well, it’s my husband, really. He doesn’t like to be left for too long.’

He gave her a small smile. ‘I can imagine he wouldn’t. Well, perhaps you could move your mother to the country in a few days.’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t! We’re staying with his parents, you see. The house is simply full of people.’

He had been writing something on his prescription pad, and now looked up at her. This time his admiration was unmistakable. He tore off the prescription and handed it to her.

‘Well, whatever plans you make, don’t let your mother be in doubt about them. The most important thing for her is that she should be free of anxiety. I’m prescribing a mild sedative that should help with that and also ensure that she gets a good night’s sleep.’

‘Will you be coming tomorrow?’

‘Yes. By the way, do you have a bedpan?’

‘I . . . I don’t think so.’ She had never seen one in her life.

‘Well, get one from the chemist. I’d like your mother to be absolutely still for a day or two. Don’t want her traipsing back and forth to the lavatory.’ He was putting the pad of paper back into his bag and preparing to go. ‘See you tomorrow, Mrs Cazalet. I’ll let myself out.’

She heard him open the front door, close it, and then there was silence. She spent a ghastly day, buying food and getting the prescription and the bedpan, and then persuading her mother to use it, and
then
having to empty it, and clean it out and put it back in the peachy bedroom with a peachy towel covering it. A nice woman at the fishmonger in Earl’s Court Road – she had to walk miles to find a fish shop – told her how to cook the fillets of plaice she bought. ‘For an invalid, is it? Just put it between two plates, dear, over a saucepan of hot water.’ That was fine, but she hadn’t asked how long for and she burned her fingers on the top plate trying to see whether it was cooked or not. Quite soon the whole flat smelled of fish, and then her mother didn’t seem to want it in the least. ‘I thought you knew me and fish, Zoë,’ she said. ‘Never mind, I can make do with some bread and milk. And some grapes,’ she called, after Zoë had gone out of the room with the tray. ‘Did you get the grapes?’

‘You didn’t say you wanted any. I asked you if there was anything you wanted and you said nothing. I’ll go this afternoon.’

‘I don’t want to be a trouble.’

But you are, she thought, scraping the fish off the plate and putting it into the rubbish bin. The bedpan business had made her feel totally unhungry. She went out again and bought grapes and a tin of turtle soup for her mother’s supper. In the evening she had a good moan to Rupert about how awful everything was and how much she missed him. He was sweet about it all, said that he was sure she was being a wonderful nurse, and it couldn’t be helped and he’d ring tomorrow.

After that, things changed rapidly. Dr Sherlock came in the morning and she’d made some coffee – about the only thing she was good at making – and offered him some after his visit to her mother. He agreed to a quick cup. Her mother was making excellent progress, he said, should be up for an hour or two quite soon, but he had told her to have an afternoon rest and to settle down early for the night. ‘And what do you do with yourself once your mother is settled?’

Zoë shrugged. ‘Nothing. My friends all seem to be away, and I don’t care to go to a cinema by myself.’ She had tried one or two old schoolfriends, but got no results. She looked down at the cup on her lap and then back at him with a small, appealing smile. ‘Still, I really shouldn’t complain.’

‘That rarely prevents one from doing so, I find. Well, I can complain as well. My wife took the children to Hunstanton for what was supposed to be a fortnight, and now it’s three weeks and no sign of them returning.’

‘Poor you!’ She proffered the coffee pot.

‘Thanks, it was delicious but I’ve got some more calls before lunch.’ He got to his feet. He really was amazingly tall. That afternoon, she went back to her own house and collected some more clothes.

By the end of the week, her mother was getting up for a part of each day, was able to bathe and use the lavatory. On Friday, he asked her if she would care to dine with him. ‘If you have nothing better to do.’ She had nothing better to do.

By tacit agreement, her mother was not actually informed of this arrangement. She told her mother that she was going to the cinema, and he said nothing. He took her to Prunier’s, and, over their Pâté Traktir and Chablis, exchanged those elliptical, fascinating and often misleading pieces of information about themselves that pave the path to physical attraction. How long had she been married? Nearly four years. She must have been very, very young, then. Nineteen. A child. And the children? She was afraid she had none. Her husband had been married before; the children she had mentioned were by his former wife. She was very young to take on step-children. Yes, it was sometimes difficult. She was wearing a halter-necked dress that made her minute shrugs of semi-denial – about extreme youth, or the consequent difficulties – particularly attractive. She had wanted to go on the stage, she volunteered, but marriage had put an end to all that. He could quite see why she had wanted to go on the stage. They had reached the Sole Véronique by now and she asked him about himself. Nothing to tell; he was a GP with a fairly large practice, a house in Redcliffe Square, had been married for twelve years and had two children. His wife disliked London and with some money inherited from her father had bought a cottage in Norfolk from which she found it difficult to tear herself away. He was not too keen on the country himself – much preferred town. Oh, yes, so did she! This agreement, as they drank to it and looked at each other escalated to a delightful significance. ‘How extraordinary,’ he said with simulated lightness, ‘that we should be so alike!’ They had reached the coffee stage before a waiter came to say that there was a call for him. When he returned, he was awfully sorry, but they would have to go – he had a visit to make. No, no, finish your coffee. He called for the bill.

‘It is a pity,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to take you on somewhere to dance.’

‘Were you?’ She could not entirely suppress her disappointment. ‘How did they know you were at the restaurant?’

‘I always leave a number with any serious case if I’m going out. It’s all part of the job. I don’t have a partner.’

As he dropped her back at the mansion block, he said, ‘Do you mind if I don’t see you in?’

‘Of course not. Thanks for the dinner. It was lovely to go out.’

‘It was lovely to go out with you,’ he returned. ‘Perhaps we could go dancing on another occasion?’

‘Perhaps we could.’

He watched while she ran lightly up the steps and opened the door to the block with her key. She turned and waved, and he blew her a kiss. It was the first time she had gone out to dinner alone with a man who was not Rupert, since her marriage, and she felt herself back on ground that was both familiar and exciting.

The next day she went home again to fetch an evening dress, and two evenings later, he took her to the Gargoyle. He was a divine dancer, the band played all her favourites and the head waiter greeted her by name. This time, no telephone call interrupted them: she wore her old white backless dress (after all, it would not seem old to him) and a green velvet ribbon round her throat with a diamanté buckle stitched onto it and her old, comfortable green shoes that were so good for dancing. Excitement and pleasure animated her beauty, making it at once more childlike and more mysterious, and he was entrapped. He told her she was a marvellous dancer and how lovely she was – at first, lightly; she received these tentative compliments politely, like a rich woman being given a bunch of daisies. But later in the evening, when they had drunk quite a lot and his admiration ascended from compliment to homage, ‘I have never even
seen
anyone
half
so beautiful in my life,’ her responses became more serious. Confident in the effect her appearance had made, she was able to indulge in flirtatious half-truths. ‘I’m awfully
dull
, really. I’ve got rather a frivolous mind.’

‘You’re certainly not
dull.
Would you like some brandy?’

She shook her head. ‘I am! And I don’t know a thing about politics and I don’t read serious books – or – ’ she searched for more harmless shortcomings, ‘or go to
meetings
about things or do charity work.’ There was a pause, he could not take his eyes off her. ‘And I don’t know if you’ve noticed that there are a lot of pictures – drawings of women – on the walls in the bar here? Well, they are by someone quite famous called Matisse, but I can’t see the point of them all.’

He said, ‘I do adore your honesty.’

‘Bet you’d get bored with it.’