Flowers in the Rain & Other Stories

  It was more cheerful. He put logs onto the fire and the flames crackled up. I pulled off my wet anorak and warmed my swollen, scarlet hands at the blaze. He said, “Tell me about you all,” so I told him, and by the time I had finished with all the family news, I was truly warm again, and the clock on the mantel-piece struck four, so he left me by the fire and went off to put the kettle on for a cup of tea. I sat by the fire, very cosy and happy, and waited for him. When he returned, with a tray and cups and a teapot and the heel of a gingerbread he had found in a tin, I said, “And what about you? I’ve told you all about our family. Now you’ve got to tell me about you.”

  “Not much to tell, really. Worked with my father for a bit, and then when he died, I went out and joined the American office. I was in San Francisco when my grandmother became so ill. That was why I’ve been so long in getting back.”

  “You had a letter from the minister.”

  I was pouring tea. He sat in an armchair and watched me, grinning. “Lachlan grape-vine never gets anything wrong. Who told you that?”

  “Mrs. McLaren in the shop, and then Mrs. Fellows.”

  “That woman! She’s been more trouble than she’s worth. Endlessly telephoning and rubbing the nurses up the wrong way, organizing everybody, telling the Reekies what they ought to be doing. A nightmare.”

  “She told me that Mrs. Farquhar was lying like a log and there was no point in coming to see her.”

  “That’s just because she hasn’t been allowed near the house, and she’s furiously jealous if anybody else is.”

  “I’m sure she means well. At least that’s what my mother always used to say about her. Go on about America.”

  “Well, anyway, I had a letter from the minister. But I didn’t get it until I returned to New York. I had a couple of days’ work to get through, and then I lit out and came home. I’ve only got two or three days’ leave and then I’ve got to get back again. I’ll hate going, but I have to. I feel torn in half, with my loyalties pulled in two totally different directions. That’s the worst of being the only, nearest, surviving relative.”

  “And if she … when she dies … what will happen to the house?”

  “It’ll come to me. And how fortunate I shall be. And what the hell am I going to do with it?”

  “You could stop being a highly powered businessman and retire to the country and take up farming.”

  “Perhaps I’d end up like Lionel Fellows, saying ‘Tight Lines’ every time I took a drink.”

  I considered this. “No. I don’t think you would.”

  He grinned again. “And farming is just about the most highly powered business that’s going these days. I’d have to go back to college, start at the bottom, learn a whole new trade.”

  “Lots of people do that. You could go to Cirencester. Take what they call the Gin-and-Tonic course. That’s what they mean by the course for mature students, retired army officers, those sort of people.”

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  “My mother lives no more than five miles from Cirencester.”

  He laughed, and all at once looked just as young as I had remembered him. “And then I should be near you all again. That’s just about the biggest carrot you could dangle in front of this old donkey. I shall have to think seriously about it.” And then he became grave again. “I would rather hold on to this place than anything else in the world. What good times we used to have. What good times we could have again. Remember walking down for the milk? And how you fed the lamb from a bottle?”

  “I was remembering that.”

  “And the evenings when we danced reels…”

  * * *

  We talked on, sharing memories, until the clock struck five. I could not believe the hour had passed so swiftly. I laid down my empty teacup and got to my feet. “Rory, I must go, or I’ll miss my bus.”

  “I’d drive you back, only I have no car, and I can’t leave my grandmother.” He hesitated. “Do you want to come up and see her?”

  I looked at him. I said, “I don’t want to be like Stella Fellows. I just wanted to see her again. I wanted to talk to her. I suppose, now, I just want to say goodbye.”

  He took my hand. “Then come,” he said.

  * * *

  We went out of the room and up the stairs, hand in hand. Along the passage. At the end of the passage a door stood open, and now the hospital smell was stronger. We went through the door, and into the big, pretty, faded bedroom, where Mrs. Farquhar had slept since coming to Lachlan as a bride. Even with the familiar evidences of professional nursing, it was still a warm and welcoming room, essentially feminine, with silver brushes on the dressing-table, photographs everywhere, frilled curtains drawn back from the long windows.

  We went to the bedside. I saw her face, serene and beautiful still, the eyes closed, the wrinkled hand lying peacefully on the fold of the linen sheet. I took her hand in mine and it was warm, and I felt still that strong persistent throb of life. She wore a pale-pink Shetland bedjacket, lined with silk chiffon. A satin ribbon lay across her throat, provocative as if she had set it there herself.

  Rory said, “Grandmother.” I thought she was sleeping, but she opened her eyes and looked up at him, and then she turned her head and looked at me. For a moment, those blue eyes stayed puzzled and empty, and then, slowly, came alive. Recognition sparked. Her fingers closed upon mine, a smile touched her wrinkled mouth, and quietly, but quite distinctly, she said my name.

  “Lavinia.”

  We stayed only for a moment. We spoke, exchanging a word or two, and then her eyes were closed once more. I bent quickly and kissed her. Her fingers loosened and I slipped my hand away and straightened up.

  I said goodbye, but I didn’t say it aloud. Then Rory put his arm around me, and turned me, and we went out of the room and left her by herself.

  I was in tears. I couldn’t find a handkerchief, but Rory had one and he mopped me up, and finally I managed to stop crying. We went downstairs and back into the sitting-room, and I picked up my anorak and put it on. I pulled on my woollen hat. I said, “Thank you for letting me see her.”

  “You mustn’t be sad.”

  I said, “I have to go. I have to catch that bus.”

  “I have to go too. Back to New York.”

  “Let me know what you decide to do.”

  “I will. When I’ve decided.”

  We went out of the room and across the hall and out through the open door. It was colder and wetter than ever, but the air smelt of heather and peat, and across the sky, somewhere beyond the rain clouds, an invisible oyster-catcher flew, crying his lonely song.

  “You’ll be all right?” said Rory.

  “Of course.”

  “You know the way?”

  I smiled. “Of course.” I put out my hand. “Goodbye, Rory.”

  He took my hand and pulled me close, and kissed me. “I’m not going to say goodbye,” he told me. “I’m going to say what the Americans always do. Take care. It doesn’t sound so final. Just take care.”

  I nodded. He let go of my hand, and I turned and walked away from him, down across the grass and into the misty tunnel beneath the trees, where the azaleas grew and the daffodils tossed their heads in the wind, waiting for the first of the sunshine, the first of the warmth.

  PLAYING A ROUND WITH LOVE

  This, then, was the real beginning of their life together. The honeymoon was over and behind them. This morning Julian had returned to work in his London office, and now he was on his way home to Putney.

  Feeling like an old married man, he found his latchkey, but Amanda opened the door before he had time to put it into the lock, and one of the best things that had ever happened to Julian was stepping inside his own house, shutting his own door behind him, and taking his own wife into his arms.

  When she could speak, she said, “You haven’t even taken off your coat yet.”

  “No time.”

  He could smell something delicious cooking. Ove
r her shoulder he saw the table laid in the tiny hall that they used as a dining-room: the wedding-present glasses and table-mats, the silver that his mother had given them gleaming in the soft lighting …

  “But, darling…”

  He could feel Amanda’s ribs, her narrow waist, the round curve of her neat behind. He said, “Be quiet. You have to realize I only have time to deal with essentials…”

  The next morning in the office, Julian’s telephone rang. It was Tommy Benham. “Nice to have you back in London again, Julian. Are you okay for Wentworth on Saturday? I’ve fixed Roger and Martin and we’ve got a starting time at ten.”

  Julian did not reply at once.

  Amanda knew about Tommy and golf. Before they were engaged, and after, she had philosophically accepted the fact that Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays, too, belonged to the golf course. But this Saturday was the first of their real life together, and she might want to spend it with him.

  “I’m … I’m not sure, Tommy.”

  Tommy was outraged. “What do you mean, you’re not sure? You can’t change your life-style just because you’ve got a wife! Besides, she’s never minded before, why should she mind now?”

  Now that was a point. “Perhaps I should have a word…”

  “No discussions, therefore no arguments. Present it as a fait accompli. Can you be there by ten o’clock?”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “Fine, we’ll see you. Till then.” And Tommy rang off.

  On his way home that evening, Julian stopped and bought his wife flowers.

  She’ll love them, he told himself smugly.

  She’ll smell a rat the moment she sees them, answered a sneering voice inside his head. Probably think you’ve been flirting with one of the typists.

  That’s ridiculous. She knows I play golf at the weekends. It’s just that … well, this is the first time since we were married. And Tommy was right. Present it as a fait accompli. Getting married doesn’t mean changing one’s life-style. Compromises, okay, but not a total change of habits.

  Who’s going to make the compromises? sneered the voice. “Her or you?”

  Julian didn’t reply to that.

  In the end he was completely honest. He found Amanda in the garden, mud-smeared and with her fair hair all over her face.

  Julian produced the flowers, which he had been hiding behind his back, with the panache of a successful conjurer.

  “I have bought them,” he said, “because I feel a louse. Tommy rang up this morning, and I’ve said I’ll play golf with him on Saturday and my conscience has been pricking ever since.”

  She had buried her face in the flower heads. Now she looked up, astonished and laughing. “But why should your conscience prick, darling?”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Well, you can’t say it’s the first time it’s happened!”

  He knew a great surge of love for her. He took her into his arms and kissed her passionately.

  Saturday was a beautiful day. Wentworth basked in sunshine, the fairways rolled before them, inviting and velvety. Julian, partnering Tommy, could do no wrong all that day.

  His mind was filled with pleasant and generous thoughts as he drove home. He decided that he would take Amanda out for dinner, but when he got in he found that she had already made her special moussaka, so he opened a bottle of wine and they had dinner at home.

  Amanda wore a canary-yellow caftan which he had bought her on their honeymoon in New York and her hair lay over her shoulders like a curtain of pale silk.

  She said, “Shall I make some coffee?”

  He put out his hand and touched the ends of that fair hair.

  “Later…”

  * * *

  He played golf again the next Saturday, and the next. The following weekend, the day was shifted to Sunday, but he accepted this arrangement lightheartedly.

  “Not playing this Saturday,” he told Amanda when he got home. “Playing on Sunday instead.”

  “On Sunday?”

  “Yes.” He poured drinks and flopped into the armchair with the evening paper.

  “Why Sunday?”

  Engrossed in the share prices, he missed a certain tone in her voice.

  “Um? Oh, Tommy’s tied up on Saturday.”

  “I did say we’d go down and see my parents on Sunday.”

  “What?” She was not angry in any way, just polite. “Oh, sorry. But they’ll understand. Ring them and say we’ll come down some other weekend.” He went back to the share prices and Amanda said no more.

  The Sunday was a failure. It rained non-stop, Tommy had a hangover from the previous evening, and Julian played the sort of golf that makes a man swear he will give away his precious golf clubs and take up some other sport. He returned home in a black and dismal mood which was not dispelled by finding his house empty.

  He wandered about aimlessly and eventually went upstairs and had a bath. While he was soaking in the bath, Amanda returned.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded angrily.

  “I went home. I said I was going to.”

  “How did you get there? I mean, I had the car.”

  “I caught a train down and someone very kindly gave me a lift back here.”

  “I didn’t know where you were.”

  “Well, now you know, don’t you?” She kissed him unenthusiastically. “And don’t tell me what sort of a day you’ve had, because I know. Dreadful.”

  He was indignant. “How can you tell?”

  “Because there is no light in the eye, no frisking of the tail.”

  “What’s for supper?”

  “Scrambled eggs.”

  “Scrambled eggs? I’m starving. I only had a sandwich for lunch.”

  “I, on the other hand, had a full Sunday lunch, so I am not in the least hungry. Scrambled eggs,” she said as she closed the door between them.

  * * *

  Julian supposed this was their first quarrel. Not even a quarrel, really, just a coolness. But it was enough to make him feel miserable and the next day he bought flowers once more on the way home, made love to her as soon as he got home, and then took her out for dinner afterwards.

  Everything was all right again. When Tommy rang to fix the next Saturday’s game, Julian joyfully agreed to play.

  That evening he found Amanda perched on top of a step-ladder in the bathroom, painting the ceiling white.

  “For heaven’s sake, be careful.”

  “I’m all right.” She leaned down for his kiss. “Don’t you think it looks better?” Together, they stared at the ceiling. “And then I thought we’d have primrose walls to match the bath, and perhaps a new green carpet.”

  “A carpet?”

  “Don’t sound so horrified. We can get a cheap one. There’s a sale on in the High Street; we can go and look on Saturday.”

  She went back to her painting. There was a long pause during which Julian, instantly defensive, took stock of the situation.

  He said evenly, “I can’t on Saturday. I’m playing golf.”

  “I thought you played golf on Sundays now.”

  “No. That was last week.”

  There was another pause. Amanda said, “I see.”

  She scarcely spoke to him again all that evening. And when she did, it was in the politest possible manner. After dinner they went into the sitting-room and she turned on the television. He turned it off and said, “Amanda.”

  “I want to watch it.”

  “Well, you can’t watch it because you’re going to talk to me.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Well, I’m going to talk to you. I am not about to become the sort of husband who shops with his wife on Saturday mornings and cuts the grass on Sunday afternoons. Is that quite clear?”

  “I suppose I’m meant to do the shopping and cut the grass.”

  “You can do what you like. We see each other every day…”

  “What do you suppose I do when you’re at the of
fice all day?”

  “You don’t need to do nothing. You had a marvellous job, but you chucked it up because you said you wanted to be a housewife.”

  “So what if I did? Does that mean I have to spend the rest of my life on my own, adapting my plans to your beastly golf?”

  “Well, what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t care what I do—but I don’t want to do it by myself. Do you understand that? I don’t want to do it by myself!”

  This time it was a real quarrel, sour and rancorous. By morning the rift was still between them. He kissed her goodbye, but she turned her head away and he went, furious, to work.

  The long day droned on, irritating and bugged with frustrations. At the end of it he felt in need of some calm and understanding company. Someone old and wise who would reassure him.

  There was one person who fitted this bill and Julian made his way to her. His godmother.

  “Julian,” she said. “What a wonderful surprise. Come in.”

  He looked at her with affection. Well into her sixties, she was as pretty and lively as ever. She had been a friend of his mother’s and no relation at all, but he had always called her Aunt Nora. Nora Stockforth.

  * * *

  He told her about everything. The honeymoon in New York, the new house.

  “And how is Amanda?”

  “She’s all right.”

  There was a small silence. Aunt Nora refilled his glass. As she sat down again, he looked up and caught her eye. She said gently, “You don’t make it sound as though she’s all right.”

  “She is all right. It’s just that she…”

  And then it all came out. He told her about Tommy and the weekly golf games. He told her about Amanda’s always having known about this arrangement, and never minding. “But now…”

  “Now she minds.”

  “It’s so ridiculous. It’s simply one day in the week. It isn’t as though she wants to do anything in particular, it’s just that she says she doesn’t want to do it by herself.”