Never any anxiety with Henry. He invited her to his election night party, quite a modest affair in his flat in Hammersmith. She liked his friends, and she liked him for not laughing at Michael Foot. A week or so later they saw a film together, one of the Star Wars films, and ate in an Italian restaurant afterwards. He tried to construct a Jedi philosophy from the meagre clues in the film, and she knew as she watched him across the stripped-pine table that she would marry him.
‘I think I’ve got it. Yoda is Welsh.’
‘Welsh?’
‘Listen to his speech patterns.’ He put on a Welsh accent. ‘Clear, your mind must be. Not believing is why you fail.’
Laura laughed.
‘The Force is Welsh, which means the Dark Side can only be English. The British Empire, you see. It all adds up. George Lucas has created a galactic version of the American War of Independence.’
‘What are you on about, Henry?’
‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘Just burbling.’
He was happy in her company, and that made her happy.
Seven weeks later he asked her to marry him. It should have been a big decision but it just felt natural, as if it was the next thing to do.
Pat Kelly comes in with tea and biscuits and the chance of a little chat.
‘Something’s up with lordy,’ she says. ‘Something’s tickling his toes.’
Laura knows but can’t say.
‘More talking in the chapel, Pat?’
‘It’s the shifting about of the man. You must have seen him. You know how he has a way of looking at you like he’s asleep with his eyes open? Well, something’s woken the man up.’
‘Money troubles, maybe.’
‘Could be money, true enough. But if you ask me I’d say the man needs his comforts. No one can go year after year without his comforts.’
‘Do you mean love, Pat?’
‘Love, for sure, and cuddles and kisses and all the rest. Men need their comforts.’
‘And women too.’
‘I don’t deny it. Women too, for sure. Don’t we all?’
‘Are you married, Pat?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’ Pat brushes back her thick black hair and straightens her skirt round her plump waist, as if the mention of marriage recalls to her that she has a body. ‘The old bastard’s not dead yet, but he’s long gone from me. That man is a waste of God’s breath and always will be. But as they say, good men are hard to find. I’m thinking I might get myself a cripple in a wheelchair.’
‘A cripple? Why?’
‘So he can’t leave me. If he tries, I wheel him back.’
She laughs, and Laura laughs too, their laughter echoing round the high hammerbeam roof.
Pat leaves her to her work, but returns almost at once to say Laura has a visitor.
‘What visitor?’ Laura never has visitors here.
‘Says he’s an old friend.’
‘Oh.’
‘Shall I send him in?’
‘No. I’ll come out.’
Nick Crocker is standing in the galleried main hall staring round him in wry appreciation. The hall is three storeys high, the entire upper storey a canopy of carved wood and glass.
‘What a place!’
‘What is it, Nick? Why are you here?’
His gaze descends to meet hers. A shrug: isn’t it obvious?
‘To see you.’
‘But you’re coming to dinner this evening.’
‘No. I don’t think so. I’d rather see you on your own.’
‘Nick, I’m working.’
‘It won’t take long. Is there somewhere we can go?’
He looks through the open door to the chapel.
‘This house really is something else. When was it built?’
‘1870, 1880, something like that.’
‘It’s insane. I love it. Like the castle in Disneyland, pure pastiche. Walt’s fantasy version of Neuschwanstein, which was mad Ludwig’s fantasy version of a medieval castle. Dreams built on dreams. It must have cost a fortune. Where did the money come from?’
‘Patent medicines. Laced with morphine.’
‘Opium dreams. Perfect.’
This is how she remembers him: maddeningly distractable, impossibly well-read, knowledgeable on every subject, ironically amused by the details of the world around him. But ask him what he feels himself, what he cares for, what he’s hurt by, and he’s silent. Knowledge, irony, silence: the Nick Crocker method.
But here he is. If this isn’t pursuit, what is? Whatever he’s come to say, she doesn’t want to hear it in the house. Better to seek the privacy of the open air.
‘I’ll show you the lake.’
They go out onto the west terrace and so down the lime avenue to the lake. Laura has resolved not to be the first to speak. This is Nick’s party. He can dance.
In the long grass on either side a few surviving pink-and-mauve fritillaries hide among the withered daffodil leaves. Nick stops and crouches down to examine the delicately drooping heads.
‘Aren’t they exquisite? The colouring! Each speckle has its own shadow. And look inside! There’s a dome Brunelleschi would have been proud of.’
He’s right, of course. Laura feels ashamed that she’s not looked more closely before.
‘And you see how each one stands alone? No vulgar crowding together like daffodils. These would be snake’s heads, do you think?’
‘I really don’t know.’
Then as they turn into the lake walk, without preamble, ‘I don’t forget, Laura.’
‘Don’t forget what?’
‘All of it.’
Laura says nothing. Nor does he seem to expect her to speak.
‘Most of all the last day.’
A cold wind is blowing off the lake. Laura shivers. Nick seems oblivious. He’s wearing a cotton jacket, a tee shirt, jeans. He looks at the overgrown path ahead, never at her. He says, ‘That was the worst day of my life.’
‘The worst day of your life?’
‘I know I made a mess of it. I know I hurt you.’
‘Do you?’
‘Laura, I was twenty-two years old. I wasn’t in control. I wasn’t in charge.’
‘Nor was I, Nick.’
‘No. We were both young. That’s all. We were young.’
Twenty and prickly-proud and arrogant-ignorant and timid in bed. Not a time to remember without shame.
‘We were young all right.’
‘I had this thing about freedom. How I wanted no possessions. No baggage, no clutter, no demands, nothing.’
‘I remember.’
‘I needed all that empty space to become whatever I had it in me to become. To grow edges – to make a shape – it’s not easy to put into words.’
‘And I was the baggage and the clutter and the demands.’
‘You were everything I wanted. But who was I? That’s why I was so scared.’
‘I don’t blame you, Nick. I’m sure I was far too clinging. Too needy. Too adoring.’
‘No. Don’t say that. I don’t think either of us are to blame. I loved you in my way, and you loved me in your way.’
‘And it didn’t work out.’
He’s silent for a moment. Then, ‘Back then, did you ever think about our future?’
‘Of course.’
‘What was it? What sort of future did you see?’
‘What you’d expect. We’d stay together. We’d get a little flat in London, or New York. Do our jobs. Support each other, encourage each other. Maybe get married one day. Have children. See them grow up.’ She smiles, shakes her head, suddenly afraid she’ll cry. ‘All the usual stuff.’
‘That’s what I thought about too.’
‘So you did a bunk.’
‘I wasn’t ready.’
‘It’s okay, Nick. It’s called fear of commitment. It’s not at all original. But just for the record, I never asked for anything. Not one single thing.’
‘Yes, but the thing is, I love
d you. That’s what made everything different. I knew this was either it forever – or I had to get out of your life.’
Laura remembers the pain of that time and feels a rush of pity for her past self.
‘Why, Nick? Why all the melodrama? Why all the this-forever or that-forever? You could have just given it a go, seen how things worked out, taken it day by day.’
‘Is that how you were back then? Giving it a go? Seeing how things worked out?’
Of course he’s right. It was all or nothing, because it was all, always all. She never believed in nothing, not till it happened.
‘I went over it for days. For weeks. It seemed to me the longer I left it the worse it would be for both of us. So it had to be now. Today. Then today went by, and I said, tomorrow. Day after day went by, and I couldn’t do it.’
‘And then you could.’
‘I did it badly, I know. I was in a terrible state. It was like cutting off part of my own body.’
‘It was like a killing, Nick. Like an execution. I wished I had died. I really did.’
‘All right. I won’t compete. It hurt you more than it hurt me.’
‘You were the one who was doing what you wanted.’
‘Yes. I’m not denying it. I’m not denying anything.’
‘And then you didn’t call, or write, or anything. Just silence. Like you died or something.’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘For over twenty years.’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t think that’s overdoing it?’
He smiles at that.
‘Probably.’
‘And now here you are.’
‘Here I am.’
A silence follows. He’s trying to find the right words.
‘I didn’t call or write,’ he says at last. ‘But I’ve thought about you every day from that day to this.’
‘Oh, come on, Nick. That’s ridiculous.’
‘I’ve tried to forget you. God knows I’ve tried. My last girlfriend, we were together for six years, I told myself this is it, settle down, get married. But I couldn’t do it. It’s very simple, really. You’re the one I gave my heart to all those years ago, and I don’t have it to give to anyone else.’
Laura is silent. She hears the rushing sound in her ears and she feels the trembling melting sensation in her stomach, but whether she’s gratified or angry or fearful she can’t tell. She’s a little stunned.
Nick understands this.
‘That’s what I wanted to say. I’ll leave you to think about it. Pick me up from the hotel on Monday. We’ll go for our walk.’
He strides away across the park to the house. As he goes he takes out a phone and calls for a taxi to get him back to the hotel.
Laura returns more slowly, waiting for her understanding to catch up with her feelings. She finds herself in a state of bewilderment. The uncertainty is not over what to do, there’s nothing to do, Nick has proposed no course of action and none is possible. But what does it all mean? Does she believe him? And if she does, what has changed?
She looks at her watch. Just past twelve.
I have a husband. I have children. I have things to do. Phone Diana to find out when she’s coming down, confirm the baby-sitter for Glyndebourne, make something for the children to eat tomorrow, is Carrie friends with Naomi again? Are my babies happy? Am I doing enough? I’ll do anything for them, there are no limits, I’ll sacrifice anything, just ask me.
Billy appears as she crosses the hall back to the library.
‘Anything on that matter we spoke about?’
‘Nothing so far, Billy. Sorry. I have been asking around.’
‘Good. Good. Seven years, you know.’
‘What’s seven years?’
‘My father knew this Doll for seven years. I can’t find it in myself to blame him. After all, seven years of happiness. That’s something, isn’t it?’
He shuffles back into his room, waving one hand in the air as he goes.
Laura packs up her boxes in the library, switches out the lights, closes the door after her. As she turns to face the high galleried hall she is caught unawares by a shiver of sensation that begins in her legs and floods her stomach and chest and makes her face burn. Before she has time to qualify or judge it she knows it for what it is: a rush of joy.
36
The hush of the classroom as twenty eleven-year-olds scratch away at their desks. Alan Strachan finds himself thinking about Liz Dickinson and wondering if she has a boyfriend. Just because she’s a single mother doesn’t mean there isn’t some other man about the house. Though if there was surely he’d share the duties of the school run and ease the burden on the granny. But then again she’s attractive, no denying it. Not pretty, too real for such a girly word, but there’s something there in her face that makes you want to, oh, get closer, nuzzle up. Must be her eyes, or the lines round her eyes. What is that look in her eyes? There’s a word for it, or several words. Resigned. Acceptant. Unjudging. Yes, that’s part of it. You look at her and you feel she’d understand.
Who am I kidding? Understand, sure, we all know what that means. Not hard to tell where that one’s going. But who else am I to turn to in my dreams? The erotic current does not flow strong in the staff room. Not unless you include the Australian gap-year students, all of eighteen years old, and if you include them then why not the girls in Year Eight, one or two of whom are so achingly gorgeous it doesn’t do to let the eyes linger too long or you wake up turned into a paedophile. Thirteen years old! Jesus! Why has nature played this trick on us? The physical peak of perfection and not to be touched. Ring them round with the electric fence of our longing and our shame, then plaster every billboard on every street with images of women made to look younger, longer-legged, thinner. The corporate logo of Planet Desire a pubescent thirteen-year-old girl, the perfect icon of the hunger that can never be satisfied, so stuff yourself with beer and chocolate and anaesthetize all lusts.
But I’d rather have Liz Dickinson any day.
Thank God, the bell for break.
‘Chloe, stay behind a moment. About your composition.’
‘But sir! It’s break time.’
‘Won’t take a second.’
Now she hates me. Can’t be helped. She’ll have to forgo the pleasure of torturing Alice Dickinson for a few minutes.
‘Actually it isn’t about your composition. I just said that so no one would know.’
It seems I have her attention. Big blue eyes, wavy blonde hair, perfect skin, evil heart.
‘It’s about Alice.’
The eyes close inside. The shutter is down. She’s going to give nothing away for free. That’s fine with me, babe. I have the jump on you in this little encounter. I’ve had time to make a plan.
‘I thought you might be able to help me. But I have to ask you to keep this between ourselves. For Alice’s sake. Will you promise?’
A slow cagey nod. She’s getting it now, this isn’t a court of law and she isn’t the defendant. So who is she?
‘Someone’s bullying Alice. I don’t know who, she won’t tell me. But it’s making her very unhappy. You’ve probably noticed how quiet she is these days.’
Another slow nod.
‘I’m not asking you to tell me who it is. That would be telling tales. But I’ve noticed you’re the one the others look up to in class. I thought maybe you could have a word with whoever’s responsible. I expect they’re just doing it for a joke. You could make them see it’s not a joke. You could even tell them it could get them expelled.’
‘Expelled!’
‘Oh, yes. We take bullying very seriously. That’s why I was hoping you could help me sort it out quietly. Do you think you can?’
She twists her lips, chews her lower lip. Wrinkles that perfectly smooth brow.
‘I suppose I could try.’
‘I shouldn’t really admit this, but I think they’ll pay more attention to you than to me.’
She likes that. The p
resumption of power, always an acceptable compliment.
‘I don’t know,’ she says.
‘Our secret.’ Hand out for her to shake. Physical contact, almost as binding these days as a blood oath. There, her slender hand in mine. ‘If anyone asks, say I’ve been banging on about full stops and commas. Really boring, and not fair in break time.’
That gets an actual smile. Conspiracy in place. Off she goes, pink as an assassin, charged up with secret explosives. Poisonous little tart. Let’s hope it works. It would be good to have an actual improvement to report to Liz after school.
So it’s Liz now, is it?
37
Alone that early evening in the production office on the Goldhawk Road Henry pours himself an industrial-strength gin and tonic and runs through the tapes of the day’s work. Nothing that can’t wait but the trains will be crowded and he feels the need to be alone. Also Nick Crocker will be at home having dinner with Laura and it takes more reserves of energy than he’s got to be sociable with a stranger, particularly one who is no stranger to his wife. So do some work, see what’s there, mark up some takes for Dylan, revise the schedule for the next day’s shoot, which is Monday.
The offending piece to camera returns to life on the office screen. He sees at once that the camera is too high and the angle too wide, at least at the start of the take. He tries to remember if that was his doing or Ray’s, and if it was his, why? Aidan Massey enters frame in the middle distance looking strikingly like a monkey. Henry runs the take three times for the sheer pleasure of it while he downs his gin, and begins to feel the tensions of the day melt away.
Why did I do it? Why didn’t I even notice I was doing it?
He’s both amused and alarmed to find his secret self is sabotaging his public actions. He could never use a take like this. Aidan Massey in monkey mode makes the enterprise ridiculous. But anger will find an outlet somewhere. Aidan Massey has come to embody everything that is unjust and futile about Henry’s life. He is the lie, and the lie corrupts everything.