‘I didn’t.’
‘It might just have come about – which was more or less what happened to me, with Philip. Us.’
Olive thought of the Crowleys’ house. The evening drinks. The tidiness. Their kindness. Penny.
What was happening to them now? Was Thea right, that she might have fallen into marriage? If so, she would have had James now.
But otherwise, marriage would have shrivelled some essential part of her. She sensed that now. And she had Malcolm’s foresight, Malcolm’s refusal to take the expected, the conventional way out, to thank.
‘I’m happy,’ she said and leaned in to smell the smell of Thea’s coat, her hair, her skin. Her smell. ‘If I had been married to Malcolm, this couldn’t have happened.’
‘No, but something else would. Someone else. You would have discovered.’
‘I’m sure I wouldn’t.’
‘I did.’
She did not say, ‘But that is different. You are different.’ Because she could not have explained what she meant. But she believed it to be true.
‘Where did she go?’
‘She?’
‘The person you met when you … that person.’
Thea jumped down from the wall and held her arms out and Olive jumped, and they stood close together on the shingle and the wind whipped suddenly off the sea and blew their hair. It was cold and clouds were massing, clouds the colour of the gulls and the darkest pebbles.
‘Come on.’
They ran, and were out of breath as they reached the front door as the rain began.
Thea went to make tea and Olive stood at the bay window, watching as the storm broke and the waves roared and reared up like great beasts.
And Thea had not answered.
27
THE SCHOOL YEAR ran on. At Easter, which was late, they went to the Scilly Isles for five days and each island was quieter than the last and they walked and sat on deserted beaches, and talked and slept. Thea had to go back to her mother, and at the last minute, Olive decided to stay on, she felt so well, so contented, but on her own, she became melancholy and restless, and took the boat back early, telling Thea in a brief note, ‘I miss you. I am only half a person without you.’
School. Exams. Play rehearsals. Tennis matches. Rounders matches. Wins and losses. Trophies and consolations. The girls sat against the wall of the music block, skirts as high as they dared lift them, browning their legs, heads back and eyes closed against the sun.
She and Thea prised out nuggets of time to spend together – two or three Sundays in the country, occasional evenings in the flat with the windows wide open and, after dark, walking in the town park under the trees, heavy with leaf, where surely no one ever saw them.
‘What are we going to do in the summer?’
Thea had an arm round Olive’s shoulders and now she pulled her to sit on the bench by the pond, where the odd mysterious sound came from deep in the hidden water. It was warm enough to have come out without jackets.
Olive assumed that although Thea would have to spend some of the time with her mother – probably even take her away somewhere for a week – they would spend long lazy weeks together somewhere.
‘Right away would be lovely, wouldn’t it? Italy, or Spain?’ She could not see Thea’s face clearly, but still she sensed doubt. ‘But anywhere in this country. I don’t mind, even if it rains every day. We would be together.’
‘I could perhaps take a week … perhaps at the end of July. I have to see to my mother and there are old friends in Scotland I usually go to in August. I’m sorry – were you expecting more? I’m sorry …’ and she touched Olive’s cheek.
‘No … of course. Anything. I’ll visit my father and Peggy anyway – they’ll expect it. When we do go, we won’t want anywhere crowded, will we?’
Thea was silent.
‘I wondered …’
‘You wonder an awful lot.’
It felt like a rebuke but the tone of voice was wrong.
‘Is there anything we can do next term – about being together? Living together? It’s so – it feels so uncertain. Temporary.’
‘I know.’
‘Is there – which village do you live in?’
It was ridiculous that she still did not know. But Thea laughed.
‘Strong Melton … everyone asks about the Strong and nobody has any idea.’
‘Might there be a cottage or something for me to rent there? Then we could be close to one another without actually living together.’
‘We do have to be careful, you know. People talk. And we are teachers.’
‘Yes.’
A nightbird made a strange cry from the bushes.
‘We have to go,’ Thea said.
In the middle of the tension of O and A levels, the normal timetable still continued.
‘For those girls between exams, we will put on special classes – music and art appreciation are covered, as usual. The Domestic Science classes for cookery are oversubscribed. I know that, as ever, the English department has its hands full with the play but not everyone is involved.’
There was a full turnout of staff. The main meeting room was packed, and stuffy, though every window had been opened. The Head looked across the table.
‘Olive? Do you have anything to offer?’
‘I can run a special class in medieval poetry – looking at the language too. And the golden age of detective fiction perhaps? And –’
‘Don’t take on too much. But those sound ideal. Put up notices asking them to sign up.’
‘I’ll put up a reading list.’
‘They won’t have a lot of time – a few of the best detective stories, maybe? Now, PE people … cricket. They always love it, and no, we cannot make cricket an official school sport, sorry.’
The meeting was winding down. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
‘Miss Piper, do you have a minute?’ Hilary, emerging from the shadows of the chapel corridor. She often seemed to be about.
‘I was just wondering if I can sign up for your extra classes …’
‘Not really, no … You’re lower sixth – these are for the A-level people. You’ll get your chance next year.’
‘But you might not be doing them next year.’
The girl had wide-open eyes that barely blinked, just gazed at Olive.
‘There will be something, I’m sure. Sorry, Hilary.’
If she did not end the conversation and move away immediately, even as she was in the middle of speaking, the girl would have walked alongside her, and more questions would follow, she was a past master at keeping pace as she talked.
‘She’s like the Ancient Mariner.’
‘Hilary is a clever girl,’ Thea said. They were finishing supper. ‘Just a bit intense. Don’t you like her?’
‘It’s not a question of liking or not liking.’
‘Did you never have a crush on a teacher?’
‘No.’
‘On another girl then?’
‘No.’
No. She had thought about it a great deal recently. The answer was always no.
‘Hm. Anyway, Hilary is harmless enough – just dodge her, or else come right out with it and tell her to stop ambushing you.’
Thea seemed amused. But it was not amusing. It was annoying. And creepy. And it disturbed her.
‘I can’t be late back this evening, love.’
‘Oh – is your mother all right?’
‘A bit querulous – she doesn’t like me being out. I’m out all day, remember.’
‘Yes.’
‘I know it isn’t easy. It will get better, I promise. We’ll go away.’
‘When?’
‘I’ll look into it … the very end of July. Or early August. Hardy country, maybe?’
‘Yes!’
‘There – that will make you happy.’
‘But will it make you happy as well?’
‘Of course. Funny girl. Of course it will.’
; She went. Olive listened to her footsteps going down the stairs, and then to the car starting. And then to the silence.
She turned back into the room and the miasma came over her, the damp, opaque feeling of having to spend the rest of the evening on her own after all … the absence of Thea.
She dug out her textbooks and sat at the table ready to work, but stared into space, without enthusiasm or energy.
She pulled the notepad towards her.
‘Darling … I hate it when you go. I want you to stay always, and always be with me. We are apart too much. We should never be apart. Please let us find a way? You said you would see if there might be somewhere for me to rent, in your village. Please look. It would be perfect. Better than …’
She put the note in Thea’s pigeonhole the next morning. Thea had said that she would not be able to come to the flat for a few nights but just after nine that evening her footsteps came on the stairs. She had brought half a lemon meringue pie, a punnet of strawberries, some cream, and they picnicked. Olive was suffused with joy at the surprise of it.
‘Your note,’ Thea said. ‘I’m looking, my dear one, I’ve asked one or two people, but it isn’t easy. It may happen but not overnight.’
‘So long as it will. I don’t mind how long I wait to be nearer to you. I can wait …’
It was after midnight when Thea left.
‘Don’t come down.’
‘Of course I’m coming down. I want every last second of you. You shouldn’t have to go.’
Thea looked at her, a long, unblinking look.
‘No.’
‘There has to be a way. There has to be somewhere. Then you will still be with your mother, but close to me.’
‘I am always close to you. But you’re right … and there will be somewhere, surely. Now, go inside. No more illness.’
But it was not Olive who became ill. The message reached her at school the following morning. Thea drove her to the station.
‘I wish I could take you all the way there, love, but apart from having to find cover for your classes and all the other things, it would look odd.’
‘Would it?’
‘Yes. It shouldn’t, and it’s wrong that we should even have to think like that. One day … Let me know how things are.’
‘Of course. I’ll try and phone you tonight.’
‘No, you’ll be needed. But drop me a note in a day or two – unless you’re back soon and it isn’t as bad as it seems.’
But it was bad.
She had not let herself imagine, and Peggy had only left a bare message telling her that she should go down. She was not prepared.
The stroke had paralysed the whole of her father’s left side. His arm lay inert as a piece of butcher’s meat, on the bedcover. His face was screwed up, the sight blanked out of one eye, his mouth twisted. From time to time he let out an odd little yelp.
‘He is in quite a lot of pain,’ the Sister said. ‘We’re giving him what we can. We have to be careful. But we don’t want Daddy to suffer.’
Olive winced.
It had happened in the early hours, Peggy said, and at first it seemed nothing, and he had begun to recover. He said it was ‘just a funny moment’. But then another. He had fallen.
‘Was he conscious?’
Peggy looked away.
Was he conscious now? The right eye had light, but still looked at her vacantly.
The nurse wiped the corner of his mouth and pushed his slack lower lip back into place.
‘You sit down,’ Peggy said. ‘I need to get some air. Will you be all right?’
‘Of course.’
She reached for her father’s hand. They were in a side room off the main ward. Sounds came. Coughs. The screech of trolley wheels, and rubber-soled shoes on polished floors. Retching. Absolute silence. A voice. A door sucking shut.
His hand felt damp. She turned it over and touched the back. Fine hairs. His signet ring. Familiar hand. She talked to him quietly, telling him about the school, small, remembered incidents, her flat, the books she was reading. He lay, warm and breathing but so heavily still.
‘Does he understand me?’
A nurse had come in and was wiping his mouth, feeling his pulse. ‘It’s hard to know. But he can hear you. They can always hear.’
They.
‘I feel as if I’m talking to myself.’
But she shrugged and left.
‘I love you very much,’ she said, and lifted her father’s hand to her cheek. The eye was still bright but did not focus on her. On anything.
Peggy did not come back for over an hour, during which visitors had to leave. Olive waited at the entrance.
‘They don’t say what’s going to happen,’ Peggy said, hunched into the taxi seat.
‘Probably because they don’t know,’ Olive replied.
Olive had never seen herself as a strong person, because she had always lacked confidence, never been sure what she should do, which road to take. But in the face of Peggy’s shocked subsidence into a sort of inertia and a dependency on her to make all the decisions, she was discovering hidden reserves.
She made an omelette, made tomatoes into a salad, buttered bread. There was only an inch of milk left.
‘You eat,’ Peggy said, ‘I couldn’t. What are we going to do?’ She was watching as Olive laid the table. Beyond the glass wall the sea was sullen, lead-grey.
‘We can’t possibly make any decisions, Peggy … it will be a case of taking each day. Come and sit down. Do you have anything to drink – a brandy, or sherry? That would help you.’
‘There’s a bottle of port and some brandy.’
Olive mixed them, weak for herself but making Peggy’s two-thirds brandy. She drank it all.
‘You can stay, can’t you, Livi?’
‘I’m not sure for how long. There’s a lot to do as the school term winds down. If you’d rather not be here alone, is there anyone you could stay with?’
‘It isn’t so much that – but if they send him home.’
‘I doubt if they will. He’ll need nursing.’
‘Yes, and I am not a nurse.’
‘Nor am I – nor are most people, come to that. I may have to go back and then come down here again later.’
‘I couldn’t have him here on my own.’ She looked desperately at Olive. She had put on weight. They ate well, often out, and sat about in the apartment a good deal, only strolled along the seafront occasionally. But her hair was set, make-up complete, clothes smart.
‘I often wonder about my parents,’ Olive said. ‘Perhaps everyone does. Parents are so deeply unknown, aren’t they? To their children, I mean. Did they love each other, were they happy? My mother was a very closed person.’
Peggy looked startled and as if this was a conversation she could not cope with. But she managed to say, ‘He has always spoken about Evelyn with great affection, you know. I have never thought they were anything other than a happy couple.’
‘And you? I’m sorry, I put that badly. I meant – do you feel that you made the right choice? Is this the life you wanted?’
For a moment she thought that Peggy might reveal whatever was the truth, about herself, the marriage. It was not that Olive expected any dreadful revelations because it had seemed to her from the beginning that they were well matched, led a life they enjoyed – had contentment. And where was the harm in any of that?
But Peggy got up. ‘I’m sorry – I feel absolutely wrung out. I just can’t cope with anything.’
‘Of course. You go to bed. You need to sleep. I shall stay up and read for a bit. I’ll leave my door ajar in case the phone rings. Can I get you anything, Peggy?’
No.
It only took ten minutes to clear away and wash up, and then she stood looking at the sea, mumbling like an old man without teeth, before going to bed, but instead of reading, she decided to write to Thea, needing to tell her about her father’s illness, what he looked like, the way it had changed everything, thrown her
about like a ship’s passenger in a storm. She wanted to make something clear. Don’t waste time. Don’t wait. Don’t harbour secrets. Because what was the point of waiting, wasting, keeping secrets?
She heard Peggy.
‘I was hoping you were still up, Livi. I’ve just been lying there. I can’t sleep. Everything is going round in my head. But you’re wanting to get to bed …’
‘No, I’m fine. Shall I make some tea?’
They went into the sitting room. Peggy looked twenty years older, heavy under her eyes and dough-pale without her make-up. Her hair was flat.
The lights winked on and off, from warning buoys out at sea, and a ship crawled along in the distance, like an illuminated snail. They sat watching.
‘What were you going to do with your summer holiday?’ Peggy said.
What were you going to do? So would she not be going away now? Did Peggy expect her to come here and stay for the whole time?
‘I’m going to Dorset – and maybe to France for a week later on.’
‘Alone?’
‘No.’
‘I’m glad. There should be someone in your life, you know. You’re young and attractive and good company. Don’t become one of those spinster schoolmistresses.’
Olive drank her tea and looked at the dark water.
‘Tell me about him … I need some nice news to take my mind off everything.’
There was no decision behind it, she had not planned to tell anyone, perhaps Peggy least of all. She did not stop to imagine what her reaction might be, she simply told – not everything, but enough. Told about her own feelings and Thea’s and about the present and what they planned to be their future, and as she told, it seemed that Thea was there in the room with them, encouraging, pleased, confirming everything.
She stopped speaking. The room was very silent. Very still. She felt a closeness to her stepmother, a warmth. She had never sensed any real affection between them but now she did. It could not have been by chance that Peggy was the first person to know, except Margaret, in a letter. Margaret had not yet replied.
The ship had slipped out of sight and only the warning buoys blinked on and off, out at sea.
Olive turned her head. Peggy’s face was set in an expression of – of what? She could not decipher, except that it was stiff, unmoving. Marble or stone. She seemed hardly to be breathing.