“Within a week? That doesn’t give me much time.”
“Well, it’s all got to happen in a week, because next Friday you get a new horoscope.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
It was not a prolonged goodbye. The express stopped at the junction for no more than a moment, and no sooner were Flora and her considerable luggage on board than the stationmaster was walking down the platform, slamming doors and preparing to blow his whistle. Flora leaned out of the open window to kiss Marcia’s upturned face. Marcia had tears in her eyes and her mascara had run.
“Telephone; let us know what happens.”
“I will. I promise.”
“And write!”
There was no time for more. The train began to move, gathering speed; the platform curved away. Flora waved, and the little station and Marcia’s blue-trousered form grew smaller and then slid out of sight, and Flora, with her hair all over her face, shut the window and sat with a thump in the corner seat of the empty compartment.
She looked out of the window. That was a tradition, watching everything slip away, just as it was a tradition, when traveling in the opposite direction, to start leaning out of the window at Fourbourne in order to catch the very first glimpse of one familiar landmark after another.
Now the tide was low, the sand of the estuary a sort of pearly brown, patterned in blue where pools of slack water reflected the sky. On the far side was a village with white houses gleaming through trees, and then the dunes, and for an instant one could see the ocean out beyond the distant white breakers of the bar.
The railway curved inland, and a grassy headland swung into view while the ocean was lost behind a rash of seaside bungalows. The train rattled over a viaduct and through the next town, and then there were small green valleys and white cottages, and gardens where lines of washing bellied and flapped in the brisk morning breeze. The train thundered over a level crossing and a man waited at the closed gate with a red tractor and a trailer filled with bales of straw.
They had lived in Cornwall since Flora was five years old. Before that her father had taught Latin and French at an exclusive and expensive Sussex preparatory school, but the job, though comfortable, was not much of a challenge, and he had begun to run out of the sort of conversation acceptable to the mink-coated mothers of his well-heeled charges.
He had always had a hankering to live by the sea, having spent Easter and summer holidays in Cornwall as a boy. Thus, when the post of senior classic master at the Fourbourne Grammar School came up he promptly applied for it, much to the concern of the preparatory school headmaster, who felt that the bright young man was destined for better things than pumping classics into the heads of the sons of farmers, shopkeepers, and mining engineers.
But Ronald Waring was adamant. At first he and Flora had lived in digs in Fourbourne, and her first memory of Cornwall was that small industrial town, surrounded by a bleak country of shallow hills spiked with old mine workings which stood out on the horizon like so many broken teeth.
But once they had settled down and her father had found his feet in his new job, he bought an ancient car, and on weekends father and daughter cast about for somewhere else to live.
Finally, following the directions of the estate agent’s office in Penzance, they had taken the road from St. Ives out toward Lands End, and after one or two wrong turns found themselves bumping down a steep, brambly lane which led in the direction of the sea. They rounded a last corner, over a stream which ran permanently across the road, and came to Seal Cottage.
It was a bitter winter’s day. The house was derelict, had no running water or sanitation and, when they finally forced the swollen old door open, appeared to have been overrun by mice. But Flora was not afraid of mice, and Ronald Waring fell in love not only with the house but also with its view. He bought it that very day, and it had been their home ever since.
At first their existence had been desperately primitive. It had been a struggle to simply keep warm and clean and fed. But Ronald Waring, besides being a classical scholar, was a gregarious man of great charm. If he went into a pub knowing nobody, he would become fast friends with at least half a dozen people by the time he left.
Thus, he found the stonemason who repaired the garden walls and rebuilt the sagging chimney. Thus, he met Mr. Pincher the carpenter, and Tom Roberts, whose nephew was a plumber with weekends to spare. Thus, he made the acquaintance of Arthur Pyper, and so of Mrs. Pyper, who bicycled in a stately fashion from the local village each day to wash the dishes, make the beds, and keep a motherly eye on Flora.
At ten years old, much to her disgust, Flora was dispatched to a boarding school in Kent where she stayed till she was sixteen. That was followed by a session learning how to be a shorthand typist, and another one learning how to be a Cordon Bleu cook.
As a cook, she took jobs in Switzerland (in the winter) and Greece (in the summer). Returning to London, she reverted to being a secretary, shared a flat with a girlfriend, waited in bus queues, shopped in her lunch hour; she went out with impoverished young men who were learning how to be chartered accountants, or slightly less impoverished young men who were opening boutiques. And in between times, she took the train up and down to Cornwall for holidays, to help with the spring cleaning, to roast the Christmas turkey.
But, at the end of last year, after a dose of flu and an unsatisfactory love affair, she had become disenchanted with the big city, homed to Cornwall for Christmas, and had needed little encouragement to stay there. It had been a wonderful, relaxed year, knowing, as the winter gave way to a particularly beautiful and early spring, and spring turned to summer, that she could stay and watch it all happening; there was no deadline; no day on the calendar when she would have to pack a suitcase and get back to the grindstone.
She did, in fact—to pass the time and earn a little money—take jobs, but they were all temporary, undemanding, and usually amusing: picking daffodils for a local market gardener; working as waitress in a coffee bar; selling caftans to summer tourists mad to spend their money.
It was in the caftan shop that she had first met Marcia and had taken her back to Seal Cottage for a drink. She had watched in delighted disbelief the instant rapport which sprang up between Marcia and her father. The rapport, it soon became obvious, was not simply a passing fancy.
Love made Marcia bloom like a rose, and Flora’s father became so appearance-conscious that he actually went out and bought himself a new pair of trousers without anybody suggesting that he do so. As the relationship steadily deepened and strengthened, Flora tactfully tried to withdraw, making excuses not to accompany them on their jaunts to the pub down the road and finding reasons for going out in the evening so that they could have Seal Cottage to themselves.
When they were married, she started making noises almost at once about returning to London and to work, but Marcia had persuaded her to stay on at Seal Cottage, at least for the summer. That she had done, but time was running out. It was no longer Flora’s life, just as Seal Cottage was no longer her home. In September, she promised herself, she would go back to London. In September, she told Marcia, I’m leaving you two old lovebirds to yourselves.
Now, it was all over. Already it was in the past. And the future? You’re going to be lucky, Marcia had said. You were born under Gemini and all the planets are moving in the right direction.
But Flora was not so sure. She took out of her coat pocket the letter which had come that morning, which she had opened and read, and then swiftly stowed away before Marcia should ask about it. It was from Jane Porter.
8 Mansfield Mews
S.W.10
Darling Flora,
The most ghastly thing has happened and I just hope this reaches you before you start out for London. Betsy, the girl I share with, has had the most ghastly row with her boyfriend, and after two days in Spain has come home. She’s here now in the flat, weeping all over everything, and obviously waiting for the phone to ring, which it never does. So
the bed I promised you isn’t available, and though you’d be more than welcome to a sleeping bag on my bedroom floor, the whole atmosphere is so fraught and Betsy is so utterly impossible that I wouldn’t ask my darkest enemy to share it. I do hope you can fix something just till you find a pad of your own. Terribly sorry to let you down like this, and hope you’ll understand. Be sure to ring me so that we can get down to a proper gossip. Longing to see you again and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t my fault.
Masses of love,
Jane
Flora sighed, folded the letter, and pushed it back into her pocket. She hadn’t said anything to Marcia, because Marcia in her new role of wife and mother had developed an alarming tendency to fuss. Had she known that Flora was going back to London without anywhere to lay her head, she would probably have refused to let her go. And having made up her mind, Flora felt that she could not bear to postpone her departure for one more day.
Now, she applied herself to the problem of what she was going to do. There were friends of course, but after a year, she wasn’t sure what they were doing, where they were living, nor even who with. Her previous flatmate was now married and living in Northumberland, and there was nobody else Flora felt she could telephone out of the blue, to plead for temporary accommodation.
It was a vicious circle. She didn’t want to take a flat until she’d found a job, but it would be difficult to do the rounds of the agents without some sort of a base in which to park her belongings.
In the end she hit upon the idea of the Shelbourne, the small, old-fashioned hotel where her father used to take her en route to one of their rare holidays abroad (perhaps to ski in Austria, or spend a couple of weeks with one of Ronald Waring’s esoteric friends, who owned a ramshackle mill in Provence). The Shelbourne was not smart and, if her father had stayed there, would certainly not be expensive. She would check in there for the night, and tomorrow start jobhunting.
It wasn’t a great solution, but rather a compromise. And life, as Marcia was wont to say, tearing the brim from one hat and stitching it to the crown of another, was made up of compromises.
The Shelbourne was a relic like an old barge beached in a backwater while the river of progress flowed by. Situated at the back of Knightsbridge in a narrow street which had once been elegant, it was slowly being dwarfed by plush new hotels, offices, and blocks of flats. Yet it clung grimly on, like an aging actress who refuses to retire.
Outside was present-day London: traffic jams, car horns, the roar of planes flying overhead, the vendor selling newspapers on the corner, the young girls with their black-rimmed eyes and their tottering clogs.
But entering through the slowly revolving doors of the Shelbourne was like stepping into yesterday. Nothing had changed—not the potted palms; not the face of the hall porter; not even the smell, a mixture of disinfectant and floor polish and hothouse flowers, rather like that of a hospital.
Behind the reception desk sat the same sad woman in her drooping black dress. Could it be the same dress? She looked up at Flora.
“Good evening, madam.”
“Would it be possible to have a single room, just for tonight?”
“I’ll just look…”
A clock ticked. Flora waited, her spirits sinking by the moment; she half-hoped that the answer would be no.
“… Yes, I can let you have a room, but it’s at the back of the hotel, and I’m afraid…”
“All right, I’ll take it.”
“If you could sign the register, and I’ll ask a porter to take you up.”
But the thought of long, stuffy hallways and a gloomy single bedroom at the end of it was too much for Flora.
“Not just now. I have to go out. Out to dinner,” she improvised wildly. “I’ll be back about half past nine. It doesn’t matter about my luggage. Just leave it here in the hall till I get back. I’ll take it up then.”
“Just as you wish, madam. But don’t you want to see your room?”
“No. It doesn’t matter. I’m sure it’s very nice.…” She felt as if she were suffocating. Everything looked so dreadfully old. She picked up her bag and backed away, still mumbling excuses. She nearly knocked over a potted palm, rescued it in the nick of time, and finally fled out into the fresh air.
After two or three reviving gulps, she felt better. It was a lovely evening, chilly but clear, with a pellucid blue sky arched over the rooftops and one or two pink-tinged clouds aimlessly blowing along like balloons. Flora dug her hands into her pockets and began to walk.
An hour later, she found herself deep into Chelsea, heading south towards the King’s Road. The little street lined with charming houses interspersed with small shops was familiar. Unfamiliar, however, was the small Italian restaurant which now stood where before Flora remembered a cobbler’s with dusty windows filled with dog leads and luggage straps and unlikely plastic handbags.
The restaurant was called Seppi’s. There were bay trees in tubs out on the cobbled pavement, a cheerful red-and-white striped awning, and a great deal of fresh white paint.
Just as Flora approached the door opened and a man came out carrying a small table which he set up on the pavement and covered with a checked red-and-white cloth. He went back into the shop and returned with two small wrought iron chairs and a Chianti bottle in a straw jacket, all of which were duly set out.
The breeze caught at the tablecloth and sent it flapping. The man looked up and saw Flora. His dark eyes flashed her a Mediterranean smile.
“Ciao, signorina.”
Italians were wonderful, Flora decided. The smile, the greeting, made her feel like some old friend he was enchanted to be meeting again. No wonder they made such successful restaurateurs.
She smiled. “Hello, there. How are you?”
“Fantastic. After such a day, who could feel anything else? It is like being back in Rome. And you look like an Italian girl who has been to the sea for the summer. The tan.” He made an appreciative gesture which involved a kissing sound and an airy spread of finger tips. “Marvelous.”
“Thank you.” Disarmed, she stopped to talk, not unwilling to continue this delightful conversation. Through the open door of the restaurant drifted mouth-watering smells—suggestions of garlic and great red tomatoes and olive oil. Flora realised that she was ravenous. She had had no lunch on the train and since leaving the Shelbourne had walked, it seemed, for miles. Her feet ached and she was thirsty.
She looked at her watch. It was just past seven. “Are you open?”
“For you we are always open.”
She said, accepting the compliment, “I only want an omelet or something.”
“You, signorina, can have anything you want…” He stood aside, a welcoming arm outflung, and thus, so charmingly invited, Flora entered. Inside there was a little bar, and beyond this the long narrow restaurant reached back. Banquettes upholstered in knobbly orange material ran down the length of each wall, and there were scrubbed pine tables and fresh flowers and brightly checked napkins. The walls were mirrored, the floor scattered with straw matting. At the far end, judging from the clatter, smells, and raised Italian voices which emanated from that direction, was the kitchen. Everything felt cool and fresh, and after an exhausting day, Flora was left with the pleasant sensation of being welcomed home. She ordered a lager and then went in search of the ladies’, where she washed the train grime from her hands and face and combed her hair. Back in the restaurant, the young Italian was waiting for her, a table pulled away from the wall, so that she could take her place, the tall frosted glass of lager neatly poured, some dishes of olives and nuts set out for her pleasure.
“You are sure you want only an omelet, signorina?” he inquired, as Flora sat down and the table was pushed in again, over her knees. “We have very good veal this evening. My sister Francesca will cook it for you like a dream.”
“No, just an omelet. But you could put some ham in it. And perhaps a green salad.”
“I will make the special dres
sing.”
Up to now the place had been totally empty, but at this moment the door from the street opened and a few more customers drifted in, settling themselves around the bar. The young waiter excused himself to Flora and went to serve them, and she was left alone. She took an icy mouthful of lager and looked about her, wondering if any stray female who happened to wander into this delightful place was accorded the same welcome. Everybody said how grim London was becoming, how offhand were the people, how unhelpful. It was heartwarming, for once, to have everybody proved wrong.
She set down her glass, looked up, and caught sight of herself reflected in the long plate glass mirror which lined the opposite wall. The faded blue of her denim jacket and the orange of the seat behind her were the colors of Van Gogh. As for herself … she saw a thin girl, with strong features, dark brown eyes, and a mouth that was too big for the rest of her face. She was still tanned from the Cornwall summer, her skin shining and clean, and her hair the color of gleaming mahogany, casual, chin-length, looking like the hair of a young boy in need of a good cut. With her faded jeans and jacket she wore a white turtleneck sweater, a gold chain knotted at the neck. Her hands and wrists, emerging from the folded back cuffs, were long-boned and tanned as her face.
She thought, I’ve been away from London too long. This casual image isn’t going to get me any sort of a job. I ought to get my hair cut. I ought to buy …
The door onto the street opened and shut again. A girl’s voice called, “Hi, Pietro!” and the next instant the newcomer came right through the bar and into the restaurant, at home as a cat in familiar surroundings. Without looking in Flora’s direction, she stopped at the table next to hers, pulled it out to make space for herself, and flopped down onto the banquette with her eyes shut and her legs stuck out in front of her.
So casual, almost insolent, were all these movements that Flora decided she must be some relation to the Italian family who owned the restaurant. A cousin from Milan, perhaps, working in London …