“Yes. I told Mr Lundstrom about Angus and he listened.”
“What else did you expect him to do?”
“Just what everybody else always does. Look shocked and horrified and delighted—or change the subject. Diana hates us to talk about Angus. I suppose because he was her one failure.” She corrected herself. “Is her one failure.”
“You mean because he didn’t come back to London with you all.”
“Yes, and learn how to be a chartered accountant or whatever career it was she had planned for him. Instead, he did exactly what he wanted to do.”
“At the risk of being told that I am taking Diana’s part in this argument, I would say, so did you. In the teeth of all opposition you got yourself to Drama School and even managed to hold down a job…”
“For six months. That was all.”
“You were ill. You had pneumonia. That wasn’t your fault.”
“No. But I got better and if I’d been worth my salt, I’d have gone back and tried again. But I didn’t, I chickened out. And Diana had always said that I hadn’t got the staying power, so in the end, inevitably, she was right. The only thing she didn’t say was ‘I told you so.’”
“But if you’d still been on the stage,” said Hugh gently, “you probably wouldn’t be getting married to me.”
Caroline glanced at his profile, strangely lit by overhead street lights and the glow from the dashboard. He looked saturnine, slightly villainous.
“No. I don’t suppose I would.”
But it wasn’t as simple as that. The reasons she had for marrying Hugh were legion and so bound up with each other that it was hard to disentangle them. But gratitude seemed the most important. Hugh had come into her life when she had returned from Aphros with Diana, a stringy fifteen-year-old. But even then, sullen and inarticulate with unhappiness, watching Hugh cope with luggage and passports and a tired and weeping Jody, she had recognized his qualities. He was just the sort of reliable male relation she had always needed but never known. And it was pleasant to be ordered about and taken care of, and his protective attitude—not paternal, exactly, but certainly avuncular—had endured through the difficult years of growing up.
Another force to be reckoned with was Diana herself. From the very beginning, she seemed to have decided that Hugh and Caroline were the perfect match. The very orderliness of the arrangement appealed to her. Subtly, for she was too clever to indulge in any obvious action, she encouraged them to be together. Hugh can drive you to the station. Darling, will you be in for dinner, Hugh’s coming and I want you to make up the numbers.
But even this relentless pressure would have been of no avail if it had not been for the affair that Caroline had with Drennan Colefield. After that … after loving that way, it seemed to Caroline that nothing could ever be quite the same again. When it was all over, and she could look around without her eyes filling with tears, she saw that Hugh was still there. Waiting for her. Unchanged—except that now he wanted to marry her, and now there seemed no reason on earth why she shouldn’t.
He said, “You’ve been quiet all evening.”
“I thought I was talking too much.”
“You’d tell me if anything was worrying you?”
“Only that things are happening too quickly, and there’s so much to do, and meeting the Lundstroms makes me feel as though Jody’s already gone to Canada and I’m never going to see him again.”
Hugh fell silent, reaching for a cigarette, and lighting it from the gadget on the dashboard. He replaced the lighter, and said, “I’m fairly certain that what you’re suffering from is Bridal Depression or whatever it is the Women’s Page always calls it.”
“Caused by what?”
“Too many things to think about; too many letters to write; too many presents to unpack. Clothes to try on, curtains to choose, caterers and florists beating at the door. It’s enough to drive the sanest girl off her nut.”
“Then why did you let us be railroaded into this huge wedding?”
“Because we both mean a lot to Diana, and to have slunk off to a Registry Office and then spent two days at Brighton would have done her out of endless pleasure.”
“But we’re people, not sacrificial lambs.”
He put a hand over hers. “Cheer up. It’ll soon be Tuesday and then it’ll be over and we’ll be flying to the Bahamas and you can lie in the sun all day and not write a single letter to anybody and eat nothing but oranges. How does that appeal to you?”
She said, knowing she was being childish, “I wish we were going to Aphros.”
Hugh began to sound impatient. “Caroline, you know we’ve been over this a thousand times…”
She stopped listening to him, her thoughts jerked back to Aphros like a fish on a line. She remembered the olive orchards, ancient trees knee-deep in poppies, against a back-drop of azure sea. And fields of grape-hyacinths and pale scented pink cyclamen. And the sound of bells from the herds of goats and the scent in the mountains, of pine, running warm, dripping with resin.
“… anyway, it’s all been arranged.”
“But, one day, shall we go to Aphros, Hugh?”
“You haven’t been listening to a single word I’ve said.”
“We could rent a little house.”
“No.”
“Or hire a yacht.”
“No.”
“Why don’t you want to go?”
“Because I think you should remember it the way it was, not the way it may be now, spoiled by developers and sky-scraper hotels.”
“You don’t know it’s like that.”
“I have a very shrewd idea.”
“But…”
“No,” said Hugh.
After a pause, she said, stubbornly, “I still want to go back.”
2
The clock in the hall was striking two when they at last got home. The chimes rang out, stately and mellow, as Hugh put Caroline’s key into the lock and pushed open the black door. Inside, the hall light burned, but the staircase rose to darkness. It was very quiet, the party was long since over and everybody had gone to bed.
She turned to Hugh. “Good night.”
“Good night, darling.” They kissed. “When shall I see you again? I’m out of town tomorrow evening … perhaps Tuesday?”
“Come round for dinner. I’ll tell Diana.”
“You do that.”
He smiled, went out, began to close the door. She remembered to say “Thank you for the lovely evening” before the door clicked shut and then she was alone. She waited, listening for his car.
When the sound of the engine had died away, she turned and went upstairs a step at a time, holding the banister rail. At the top of the stairs, she turned off the hall light and went along the passage to her bedroom. The curtains were drawn, the bed turned down, her nightdress laid across the foot of the quilt. Shedding shoes, bag, coat and scarf in her progress across the carpet, she reached the bed at last and flopped across it, careless of any damage that she might do to her dress. After a little she put up a hand and began, slowly, to undo the tiny buttons, pulled the caftan over her head and then the rest of her clothes; she put on her nightdress, and it felt cool and light against her skin. Barefoot, she padded through to the bathroom, washed her face in a cursory fashion and scrubbed her teeth. This refreshed her. She was still tired, but her brain was as active as a squirrel in its cage. She went back to her dressing table and picked up her brush, and then, deliberately, laid down the brush and opened the bottom drawer of the dressing-table and took out the letters from Drennan, the bundle still tied in red ribbon, and the photograph of them both, feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square; and the old theatre programmes and the menus and all the little worthless scraps of paper that she had collected and treasured simply because they were the only tangible way of pinning down the memories of the time they had spent together.
You were ill, Hugh had said this evening, making excuses for her. You had pneumonia.
It
sounded so obvious, so straightforward. But none of them, not even Diana, had known about Drennan Colefield. Even when it was all over and Diana and Caroline were alone together in Antibes where Diana had taken her to convalesce, Caroline never told her what had really happened, although she longed sometimes for the comfort of old clichés. Time is the great healer. Every girl has to have at least one unhappy love affair in her life. There’s better fish in the sea than ever came out of it.
Months later, his name had come up at breakfast. Diana was reading the paper, the theatre page, and she looked up and said to Caroline, across the sunlight and the marmalade and the smell of coffee, “Wasn’t Drennan Colefield at Lunnbridge Repertory when you were down there?”
Caroline, very carefully, laid down her cup of coffee and said, “Yes. Why?”
“It says here he’s going to play Kirby Ashton in the film of Bring Out Your Gun. I should think that would be a pretty meaty part, the book was all sex and violence and gorgeous girls.” She looked up. “Was he good? I mean as an actor?”
“Yes, I suppose he was.”
“There’s a photo of him here with his wife. Did you know he’d married Michelle Tyler? He looks terribly handsome.”
And she had handed the paper over, and there he was, thinner than Caroline remembered, and the hair longer, but still the smile, the light in the eye, the cigarette between his fingers.
“What are you doing tonight?” he had asked the first time they had ever met. She had been making coffee in the Green Room and was covered in paint from working on the scenery. And she had said “Nothing,” and Drennan said “So am I. Let’s do nothing together.” And after that evening the world became an unbelievably beautiful place. Each leaf on every tree was suddenly a miracle. A child playing with a ball, an old man sitting on a park bench, were filled with a meaning that she had never recognized. The dull little town was transformed, the people who lived in it smiled and looked happy and the sun always seemed to be shining, warmer and brighter than ever before. And all this because of Drennan. This is how it is to love, he had told her and showed her. This is how it is meant to be.
* * *
But it was never like that again. Remembering Drennan and loving him; knowing that in a week she was going to marry Hugh, Caroline began to cry. There were no sobs or disturbing sounds, simply a flood of tears that filled her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, unchecked and unheeded.
She might have sat there till morning, staring at her reflection, wallowing in self-pity and coming to no worthwhile conclusion if she had not been disturbed by Jody. He came soundlessly down the passage which separated his room from hers and tapped at the door, and then, when she did not reply, opened the door and put his head round.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
His unexpected appearance was as good as a douche of cold water. Caroline at once made an effort to pull herself together, wiped at her tears with the flat of her hand, reached for a dressing-gown to pull over her nightdress.
“Yes … of course I am … what are you doing out of bed?”
“I was awake. I heard you come in. Then I heard you moving around and I thought you might be feeling sick.” He closed the door behind him and came over to where she sat. He wore blue pyjamas and his feet were bare, and his red hair stuck up in a crest at the back.
“What were you crying about?”
It was useless to say “I wasn’t crying.” Caroline said “Nothing” which was just about as useless.
“You can’t say ‘nothing.’ It isn’t possible to cry about nothing.” He came close, his eyes on a level with hers. “Are you hungry?”
She smiled, and shook her head.
“I am. I thought I’d go downstairs and find something.”
“You do that.”
But he stayed where he was, his eyes moving around, searching for clues as to what had made her unhappy. They fell on the bundle of letters, the photograph. He reached out and picked this up. “That’s Drennan Colefield. I saw him in Bring Out Your Gun. I had to get Katy to take me because it was an A Certificate. He was Kirby Ashton. He was super.” He looked up at Caroline. “You knew him, didn’t you?”
“Yes. We were at Lunnbridge together.”
“He’s married now.”
“I know.”
“Is that why you were crying?”
“Perhaps.”
“Did you know him as well as that?”
“Oh, Jody, it was all over a long time ago.”
“Then why does it make you cry?”
“I’m just being sentimental.”
“But you…” He stumbled over the use of the word “Love.” “You’re going to marry Hugh.”
“I know. That’s what being sentimental means. It means crying over something that’s finished, over and done with. And it’s a waste of time.”
Jody stared at her intently. After a little, he laid down the photograph of Drennan and said, “I’m going down to find a piece of cake. I’ll come back. Do you want anything?”
“No. Go quietly. Don’t wake Diana.”
He slipped away. Caroline put the letters and the photograph back into the drawer, closed it firmly. Then she went to collect the clothes she had discarded, hung up her caftan, treed her shoes, folded the other things and laid them over a chair. By the time Jody returned, bearing his snack on a tray, she had brushed her hair, and was sitting up in bed, waiting for him. He came to settle himself beside her, edging the tray on to her bedside table.
He said, “You know, I’ve got an idea.”
“A good one?”
“I think so. You see, you think I don’t mind going to Canada with Diana and Shaun. But I do. I don’t want to go in the very least. I’d rather do anything than go.”
Caroline stared at him. “But, Jody, I thought you wanted to go. You seemed so keen on the idea.”
“I was being polite.”
“For heaven’s sake, you can’t be polite when it’s a question of going to Canada.”
“I can. But now I’m telling you that I don’t want to go.”
“But Canada will be fun.”
“How do you know it’ll be fun? You’ve never been there. Besides I don’t want to leave this school and my friends and the football team.”
Caroline was mystified. “But why didn’t you tell me this before? Why are you telling me now?”
“I didn’t tell you before because you were always so busy with letters and toast-racks and veils and things.”
“But never too busy for you…”
He went on as though she had never spoken. “And I’m telling you now because if I don’t tell you now it’ll be too late. There just won’t be time. So do you want to hear about my plan?”
She was suddenly apprehensive. “I don’t know. What is your plan?”
“I think I should stay here in London, and not go to Montreal … no, not stay with you and Hugh. With Angus.”
“Angus?” It was almost funny. “Angus is in the back of beyond. Kashmir, or Nepal or somewhere. Even if we knew how to get hold of him, which we don’t, he’d never come back to London.”
“He’s not in Kashmir, or Nepal,” said Jody taking a large mouthful of cake. “He’s in Scotland.”
His sister stared at him, wondering if she had heard aright through all the cake crumbs and sultanas. “Scotland?” He nodded. “What makes you think he’s in Scotland?”
“I don’t think. I know. He wrote me a letter. I got it about three weeks ago. He’s working at the Strathcorrie Arms Hotel, Strathcorrie, Perthshire.”
“He wrote you a letter? And you never told me?”
Jody’s face closed up. “I thought it better not to.”
“Where is the letter now?”
“In my room.” He took another maddening bite of his cake.
“Will you show it to me?”
“All right.”
He slipped off the bed and disappeared, to return carrying the letter in his hand. “Here,” he said a
nd gave it to her, and climbed back on to the bed, and reached for his milk. The envelope was a cheap, buff-coloured one, the address typewritten. “Very anonymous,” said Caroline.
“I know. I found it one day when I came back from school and I thought it was someone trying to sell me something. It looks like that, doesn’t it? You know, when you write away for things…”
She took the letter out of the envelope, a single sheet of airmail paper, which had obviously been much handled and many times read, and felt as if it were about to fall apart.
Strathcorrie Arms Hotel,
Strathcorrie,
Perthshire.
My dear Jody,
This is one of those messages you burn before reading because it is so secret. So don’t let Diana get her peepers on it, otherwise my life won’t be worth living.
I returned from India about two months ago, finished up here with a chap I met in Persia. He has now departed and I managed to get myself a job in the hotel as boot boy and filler of coal buckets and log baskets. The place is full of old people up for the fishing. When they aren’t fishing they sit about in chairs looking as though they had been dead for six months.
I was in London for a couple of days after my ship docked in. Would have come to see you and Caroline, but terrified that Diana would corral me, halter me (in starched collars), shoe me (in black leather) and groom me (cut my hair). Then it would only be a matter of time before I was broken to harness and a nice safe ride for a lady.
Send C. my love. Tell her I am well and happy. Will let you know next move.
I miss you both.
Angus.
“Jody, why didn’t you show me this before?”
“I thought perhaps you’d feel you had to show Hugh and then he would tell Diana.”
She re-read the letter. “He doesn’t know I’m getting married.”
“No, I don’t suppose he does.”
“We can ring him up.”
But Jody was against this. “There’s no phone number. And anyway, someone would hear. And anyway, phoning’s no good, you can’t see the other person’s face, and you always get cut off.” She knew that he hated the telephone, was even frightened of it.