She said, “I knew you were coming. Mabel told me.”
“I didn’t know you were here.”
“Nice surprise for you.”
“You’re thin.”
“Last time you saw me, I was large with child.”
“I don’t mean that sort of thin. You’re really thin. It suits you.”
“That’s all my hard work. Have you heard about my house?”
“Mabel just told me. She told me about the divorce too. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. The whole thing was a ghastly mistake, and one that I should never have made.” She shrugged. “But you know me, Tom. If ever there was a stupid thing to do, then I did it.”
“Where’s your little boy?”
“Around the place somewhere. Probably eating sandwich crusts in the kitchen.”
She was wearing a dirty old pair of jeans and blue canvas sneakers. Her sweater was so old as to be ragged. There was a hole in one sleeve, and Kitty’s bony elbow protruded from this. Looking up at her, he realized how much she had changed. Where once cheeks had curved above that stubborn chin, bones and planes and angles now showed. There were lines about her mouth, but the shape of that mouth was the same, with laughter hovering, and a dimple that appeared when she smiled.
She smiled now. Her eyes were intensely blue. He dragged his gaze away from her and searched for other things to talk about. He saw the complicated contrivance of garden net and greenery. A jungle, Mabel had called it. “Did you do all this yourself?”
“Most of it. Eustace helped getting the netting up. It’s going to be a disco. Isn’t Mabel a marvel? Imagine having a disco at your seventy-fifth birthday ball.”
“You’ve made a good job of it. It looks very night-clubby.”
She said rather wistfully, “How’s London?”
“Same as ever.”
“Have you still got the same job? With the insurance people?”
“So far.”
“So far, so good. And how’s your love life? Isn’t it time you were getting married? Not that I’m much of an example to follow.”
“My love life is doing very nicely, thank you.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Here!”
He caught the pliers that she threw to him, and the ball of string, and then went to hold the stepladder steady while Kitty descended.
“Are you stopping now?”
“Yes, there’s nothing more I can do … It’ll look all right when the lights are off; you won’t be able to see all the knots.”
“Tell me about your house.”
“Nothing to tell, really. We’re living in a caravan.”
“Will you show me the house?”
“Of course I will. You can come and see me tomorrow. I’ll probably give you a job of work to do.” She yawned. “Do you think if we went and made the right sort of noises, somebody would give us a cup of tea?”
So they turned off the light and made their way back across the landing and through the big door that led to the kitchen. There a couple of stalwart ladies were engaged in every sort of culinary preparation for the party the following day. A roasted turkey was just coming out of the oven; egg whites were beating in an electric mixer; soup steamed in an enormous pan. In the middle of all this, on the table and eating pastry scraps, sat Crispin. He was amazingly like his mother to look at, and even dressed in the same style, with the additional garnish of chocolate-cake mixture around his mouth, and a pair of suspiciously sticky hands.
Kitty went to pick him off the table. He tried to wriggle out of her arms, but she kissed his chocolate mouth and then took him to the sink to wash his hands and wipe at the front of his jersey with a damp cloth. When she had dried him off with a handy tea-towel, she brought him back to be introduced to Tom.
“This is Tom, and he’s a sort of cousin. I don’t know whether you call him Tom or Uncle Tom or Cousin Tom or what.”
“Just Tom.”
“We live in a caravan,” Crispin told him.
“I know. Your mother was saying.”
“But we’re going to live in a new house.”
“I’ve been hearing about it. I’m going to come and see it.”
“You’re not allowed to walk on the floor because it’s all sticky. Mummy’s been varnishing it…”
“It’ll be dry by now,” Kitty told him. “Is there any tea going?” she asked one of the catering ladies, and was informed that a tray had already been taken into the library, so they all trooped off and found Aunt Mabel sitting by the fire, drinking tea from a mug with SNOOPY LOVES YOU written on the side, and sharing a large slice of gingerbread with four slavering dogs.
* * *
He slept that night in a brass bedstead, in a bedroom that had only a single dim light hanging from the middle of the ceiling and a howling draught which whistled across the floor-board. Investigation disclosed the fact that this was coming from a hole in the roof of an adjoining tower room, where a row of coat hooks and some wire hangers indicated that this was the closet where he was expected to dispose of his clothes. Tom, unpacking, did this, got into his pyjamas, and then made the long journey to the nearest bathroom in order to clean his teeth. Finally he got into bed. The sheets were linen, much darned and icy to touch, and the pillowcase was so heavily embroidered he knew that he would awake in the morning with the pattern embossed upon his cheek.
* * *
It rained in the night. He awoke and heard it and lay listening; first a patter of drops and then a steady drumming on the roof, and then, inevitably the drip, drip, drip of the leak in the turret room. He lay and thought about his dinner jacket hanging there, and wondered whether he should get up and rescue it, and then decided that he couldn’t be bothered to leave his cosy bed. He thought about Mabel, and tried to imagine how much longer she could continue to live in this vast and primitive place. He thought about Kitty and Crispin and wondered if this same rain was drumming on the roof of their caravan. He thought about Elaine, and was glad, under such circumstances, that she had decided not to accompany him. He thought about Kitty again. That face … the mouth with the dimple when she smiled. He rolled over on his side and, still thinking about Kitty, went to sleep, lulled by the peaceful sound of the rain.
* * *
It had stopped by the morning. Tom awoke late and came downstairs to find a plate of bacon and eggs kept warm in the oven, and a flurry of domestic activity already in progress. Chairs were being shunted to and fro, crates of glasses manhandled up the stairs, tables set out, draped in immense damask cloths, unused for years. Small vans burst into the forecourt through the arch of the gatehouse, to park at the front door and unload pot plants, piles of plates, crates of wine, trays of freshly baked rolls.
One particularly disreputable van disgorged two long-haired young men and all the trappings of the disco. Tom showed them to the jungly nursery and left them, twined about with electrical wires, to set up their speakers and woofers and tweeters. Then, when he asked for a job to do, he was given the task of humping sackfuls of logs up the back stairs, as fuel for the many open fires that were going to be lighted.
Mabel was everywhere, large-footed, wrapped in a hessian gardening apron, apparently tireless. On his fourth trip upstairs with a sack of logs on his back, Tom came upon her on the kitchen landing, peacefully mixing up the dogs’ dinners in their various bowls, as though it were the most important task of the day. Which, to her, it probably was.
He set down his sack and straightened his aching shoulders.
“This is worse than the salt mines. How many more of these do I have to bring up?”
“Oh, my darling, I’m sure you’ve brought enough. I didn’t realize you were still doing it. I thought you’d stopped.”
He laughed. “Nobody told me to stop.”
“Well, stop now. Stop doing anything. There’s nothing more to do, and if there is, somebody else can do it.” She looked at the massive watch strapped to her wrist. “Go and buy yourself a drink in the pub. And ha
ve something to eat as well. The caterer doesn’t provide luncheon, and I daren’t go into the kitchen and cook for you, I’d be turned out.”
“I thought,” said Tom, “I might go and see Kitty’s house.”
“What a good idea. You can take her out for lunch as well. I’m sure she never eats enough. I sometimes wonder if she ever eats anything. That’s why she’s got so thin. And as for that little Crispin, when he comes here, he never has his hand out of the biscuit tin. Starved, most likely,” she added tranquilly, and beamed down at her drooling dogs. “Who’s ready for their din-dins then? Who are Mummy’s darling boys?”
* * *
So Tom unloaded the last sackful into an already brimming log basket, stuffed the empty sack behind a sofa because he could not face the thought of trudging back down to the basement, cleaned himself up and went off to visit Kitty.
Caxford lay on the edge of the moor, with a distant view of the North Sea and a small and beautiful church surrounded by trees that all leaned inland, away from the prevailing wind. Kitty’s house lay at the far end of the main street, set away by itself, a little distant from the last struggling row of cottages. Tom drew up at the side of the road and got out of the car and smelt the peaty tang of the moor, and heard the distant baa-ing of sheep. He saw the little house, the old walls and the new roof, the chaos of building that had churned up what had once been a front garden. He opened a sagging gate and went up a path that led around the side of the house. At the back was a great deal more land. He looked about him with interest, and saw the border hedge of hawthorn, a line of derelict outbuildings that had probably once been piggeries; in front of these was parked Kitty’s caravan and a battered old car, along with a cement mixer and a selection of shovels and wheelbarrows.
Picking his way across the churned mud, he now had a view of the back of the house, and saw that on this side a whole new extension had been constructed, the new roof tiles melding with the slope of the old. Planks led across pools of mud at the side of the house to the main door, at the front, which stood open. It was a very beautiful panelled door of stripped pine, and from beyond it came the cheerful sound of pop music.
He made his way across the plank and banged on the door.
“Kitty!”
The music stopped. She had switched off her transistor. A moment later she appeared at the door, looking much as she had yesterday except for a smear of brown varnish down one cheek.
“Tom. I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I said I would.”
“I thought you’d be too busy helping Mabel.”
“I’ve been working like a slave, but thank God she turned me out. She said I was to come and buy you lunch.” He stepped through the door and looked about him with interest. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve just finished Crispin’s bedroom floor.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s gone to spend the day with the schoolmaster’s family. They’re terribly kind. My best friends, really. The schoolmaster’s wife is keeping him for tonight as well, and she says I can change for Mabel’s party in her house, and have a bath. It’s not very easy getting dressed for a dance if you’re living in a caravan.”
“No, I can see that. When are you moving in here?”
“It ought to be ready in about two weeks.”
“Have you got any furniture?”
“Enough for just the two of us to start with. It’s not a very big house. Just a cottage. Not very grand.”
“It’s got a frightfully grand front door.”
Kitty looked delighted. “Isn’t it beautiful? I got it from a scrap merchant. I got all the doors from scrap merchants or junk yards. You know, people pull down lovely old houses because they are falling to pieces or somebody wants to build a factory in the garden, and sometimes somebody has the wit to save all the doors and the window-frames and the shutters. This one was so handsome I made it my front door. I think it looks really impressive, don’t you?”
“Who stripped the paint off?”
“I did. I’ve done a lot of other things as well. I mean the builders have done all the professional work, but they’re terribly nice men, and they don’t seem to mind having me under their feet all the time. And if you have to pay people to strip paint off doors, it costs the earth, and, you see, I haven’t got very much money. Anyway, come and look round. This is the kitchen, and we’re going to eat in here as well, so it’s got to be a kitchen-dining-room…”
Slowly they inspected the house, going from room to room, and Tom’s natural interest grew to a sort of amazed admiration, for Kitty had somehow managed to see in a derelict cottage the possibilities of creating a house that was quite unique. Every room had its charming, unexpected feature. An odd little window, a recess for books, a soaring tongue-and-grooved ceiling, a skylight.
The kitchen was flagged with red quarry tiles that she had found on a dump, painfully cleaned, one by one, and laid on the floor herself. From the kitchen an open stair rose to Crispin’s attic bedroom, which had a long, low window where his bed would be, so that he could lie in the mornings and watch the sun rising.
The sitting-room had not only a small charming Victorian fireplace but a gallery as well, with access by means of a ladder that Kitty had had riveted to the wall.
“That’s where Crispin can go to watch television. He can get away by himself and not have to talk to people.”
A fire burnt cheerfully in the grate.
“I lit the fire to see if it would draw properly. And to dry the new plaster out a bit.”
“Was the fireplace here?”
“No. I rescued that from a dump, too, and set the blue-and-white tile in around it. I think it looks just right, don’t you?”
She showed him a pine dresser that she had bought and was going to fill with coloured china. She showed him a chair that she had made from a barrel sawn in two. She showed him her own bedroom, which was on the ground floor and had French windows leading out onto what would one day be a terrace.
He stood and looked out at the churned mud and the piles of bricks.
“Who’s going to put the garden straight for you?”
“I’ll do it myself. I’ll have to dig it, because there are all sorts of hideous treasures buried there. Like old bedsteads. I thought of putting a cultivator through it, but I think a cultivator would be broken in a matter of minutes.”
He said, “Are you going to live here with Crispin?”
“Of course. What else would I do?”
“Sell it. Make an enormous profit. Move on.”
“I couldn’t sell it. I’ve put too much of myself into it.”
“It’s very isolated.”
“I like it.”
“And Crispin? What will happen to him? Where will he go to school?”
“Right here. In the village.”
He turned from the window and faced her. He said, “Kitty, are you sure you haven’t taken on too much?”
For a moment she met his gaze. Her eyes were enormous in her thin face, their very blueness startling. Then she turned away from him.
“Look, Tom, these are my fitted cupboards. See how huge they are. And I’ve only got one pair of jeans and a dress to put in them. But you see, we used old shutters for the doors. They’re lovely, aren’t they?” She laid her hand on the satiny honey-coloured wood, and it was like watching a person caress some living creature. “There’s this pretty plaster moulding. At first I thought it was carved wood and I nearly rubbed it off…” He saw her hand, the nails broken, the skin roughened and ingrained with dirt.
“Kitty, is this what you really want?”
She did not at once reply to this. Her hand continued to stroke the wood. He waited, and after a little she said, “In a moment, Tom, you’re going to say, ‘Kitty, you don’t want to live here.’ It’s what people have been saying to me all my life. Kitty, you don’t want to ride that horse. Kitty, you don’t want to wear that dreadful dress. Whatever I really wanted
to do my parents always told me that I didn’t. How could they know? It wasn’t any good telling them that I didn’t want to go to Paris and be an au-pair girl, but if I hadn’t gone, then I’d have been sent to some dismal place to be taught how to cook or type or arrange flowers. I’m not that sort of person, Tom. That’s why, when I got chucked out of that job in Paris—and it wasn’t my fault, Monsieur was a sexy creep—I didn’t come home. I knew that if I didn’t escape then, then I never would. And as for Terence,… if only everybody had just left me alone, I know I’d never have married him. But it started right away, just as soon as they’d set eyes on him. ‘Kitty, you don’t want to have anything to do with a man like that. Kitty, you don’t want to spend the rest of your life living on a boat. Kitty, you don’t want to marry him.’ So in the end, I did. It’s as simple, and as stupid, as that.”
Tom leaned his shoulders against the cold glass of the French windows, and put his hands in his pockets. He said cautiously, “I wouldn’t ever tell you what you want. I wouldn’t know what you want. I just don’t want to see you make another mistake, get into a situation that’s way over your head.”
“I’ve been making mistakes all my life. Either that, or my horoscope’s gone mad, and all my stars are in the wrong order. But still, I must be allowed to do my own thing. I must lead my own life. I’ve got Crispin and I don’t need a lot of money. And I like it here in Caxford. I like being near Mabel, I like being near Kinton and remembering all the fun we had when we were children. That’s why I came back to Northumberland, and that’s why I want to stay here.”
“I’m filled with admiration for you, and astonished at what you’ve achieved. I just can’t bear to think of you struggling on on your own…”
“You mean the house? But that’s been a sort of therapy. It’s got me over a lump. It’s got me over Terence.”
“What’s happened to Terence?”
“He’s gone back to France.” She closed the doors of her cupboards and turned the latch, as though she were shutting Terence away. “You know, Tom, when I knew that you were coming north this weekend, I wished that you weren’t. I didn’t want to be reminded of that terrible evening when you took us out for dinner and Terence got so drunk. I suppose it makes me feel embarrassed and ashamed. Nobody ever likes to feel ashamed. Or guilty.”