Blue Bedroom and Other Stories (11 page)

“I've got Sally.”

“But she's a girl, and she's your sister. And she's older than you are. Wouldn't it be nice to have a boy your own age?”

“Not Nigel.”

“Oh, James, he's not as bad as all that.”

“He opened all the windows in my Advent calendar. He found it in my desk and he opened them all. Even Christmas Eve.”

He would never forgive this. Never forgive. Veronica stopped trying, but it was embarrassing when she came face to face with Nigel's mother. Nigel's mother, however, was not in the least embarrassed.
She thinks,
decided Veronica,
that I am much too dull to bother about. She probably thinks that James is dull, too.

“Heavens, we thought we were going to be late, didn't we, Nigel? Hello, James, how are you? We went to Portugal, but Nigel got a beastly tummy and had to stay in bed for a week. Much better if we'd stayed home, really…”

She chattered on, feeling in her bag for a cigarette, lighting it up with her gold lighter. She wore a pale blue jumpsuit with a zip up the front, gold ballet slippers, and a fluffy sweater knotted round her shoulders. Veronica, watching her, wondered how she found the time to put on all that make-up
every
day. The reflection was full of admiration and without rancour, but Veronica wore an old pleated skirt and sneakers and felt that her face was naked.

Nigel's mother was asking after Sally.

“She went back to school last week.”

“She'll be leaving soon, I expect.”

“She's only fourteen.”

“Only fourteen! Goodness, you can hardly believe it.”

“The train's coming,” said James, and they turned to face the train as though it were an enemy approaching. It thundered out of the cutting, slowed down as it reached the curve of the track, then drew in alongside the platform, shutting out the sunlight, filling the little station with noise. Doors opened and people got out. Nigel's mother was off like a shot, seeking a non-smoker, and Veronica and the two boys meekly followed.

“Here we are, and empty too … in you get.”

They clambered up the step, found their seats, came back for their coats and their bags.

“Goodbye, my darling,” said Nigel's mother. She embraced her child, kissing him soundly on both cheeks, leaving traces of lipstick which, later on, he would remove with his handkerchief. Over their heads James and his mother watched each other. The guard came down the platform to pack them in and shut the door, for the train was an express and only stopped for a few minutes at this small junction. Penned in, imprisoned, the boys let down the window and hung out, Nigel in front and James easing himself into a corner so that he could still see his mother's face. The guard waved the green flag, the train began to move.

I love you,
she thought and hoped that he heard. “Have a good journey!” He nodded. “Send me a postcard as soon as you arrive.” He nodded again. The train gathered speed. Nigel leaned out, waving, taking up all the space in the window. But James had already disappeared. He did not believe in prolonging misery. He had gone to his seat, Veronica knew, would already be settled, unfolding his comic, making the best he could of an intolerable situation.

The two mothers walked together out of the station and over to where the white Jaguar and the old green station wagon stood side by side.

“Oh, well,” said Nigel's mother. “That's that. Now we'll have a bit of peace, I suppose. Roger and I thought we'd go away for a bit. I don't know, the house feels empty without them, doesn't it?” She seemed to realise she had said the wrong thing, for she knew that Veronica's house, except for Toby the dog, was entirely empty. “You must come over,” she said quickly, for she was a kind-hearted girl, “for a meal or something. I'll phone.”

“Yes, do that. I'd love it. Goodbye.”

*   *   *

The white Jaguar went ahead, up the steep lane to the road, turning left and away towards the town. Veronica took the station wagon more slowly. It stalled at the top, and she had to start the engine again, and then wait while a lorry thundered by. It didn't matter. She was in no hurry. The rest of the day and tomorrow and tomorrow stretched emptily ahead, the inevitable vacuum of aimless hours, which had to be endured before she could bring herself to change gear, to pick up occupations that had nothing to do with her children. To paint the kitchen and plant some roses; to organise a charity coffee morning, start thinking about Christmas.

Christmas. The idea was ridiculous on a day that appeared to be suspended in midsummer. Trees were still full of leaves and, beyond them, the sky blue and cloudless. She turned down the narrow road that led to the village and it was spattered with shade and sunshine which filtered through the tall elms. She came to a crossroads and stopped again. A man drove a herd of cows to be milked. Waiting for them to pass, Veronica glanced into her driving mirror to see if there was another car behind and caught sight of her own reflection.
You look like a girl,
she told herself angrily.
An elderly girl. Suntanned and with no make-up and your hair as untidy as your daughter's.
She remembered Nigel's mother with her darkly coated lashes and the blue on her eyelids. She thought,
At least I'll have time to get my hair done. And my eyebrows tidied up. And perhaps a facial.
A facial was good for the morale. She would have a facial and her morale would soar.

The cows went by. The man driving them waved to her with his stick. Veronica waved back, started up her engine, and drove on, up the hill and around a corner and so into the main street of the village. At the War Memorial she turned down the lane that led to the sea, and the trees fell away and the fields dipped to the creaming coast, the sea green and blue and streaked with purple, flecked with white horses. She came to a tall hedge of fuchsia, changed down, turned sharply and went in through the white gate. The house was grey, square, and thoroughly old-fashioned. She was home.

She went in, knowing how it would be. The hall clock ticked slowly. Toby heard her coming; his claws clicked across the polished floor of the kitchen and he appeared in the doorway, not barking because he always knew when it was family. He came to greet her, searched for James, found no James, returned with dignity to his bed.

It was cool indoors. The house was old and thick-walled, and the furniture was old too, so that it smelt old, but in a pleasant way, like a well-kept antique shop. It was very quiet. When Toby had settled once more, there was only the clock and a tap dripping from the kitchen and the hum of the refrigerator.

She thought,
I could make tea, although it's only half-past three. I could get the washing in and iron it. I could go upstairs to James's room and pick up his clothes.
She saw them, the jeans worn and crumpled, bent to his shape; the grey socks, the disreputable sandals, the Superman T-shirt that was his favourite garment. He had worn them this morning; they had gone to the beach for a final swim, abandoning the dishes, the dusting, the bed-making. Afterwards she had cooked his favourite lunch, chops and baked beans, and eaten it with him, and the clock had ticked away their last moments together.

She dropped her bag, went through the cool hall, out across the sitting room, through the French windows, and down the two stone steps that led to the lawn. There was a sagging deck chair and she sank into it in a sort of exhausted apathy that was beyond time or reason. The sun was in her eyes, and she put up her arm to shut away the glare and at once sounds closed in, demanding attention. The children were being let out of the village school; the church clock, always a little slow, chimed the half hour. A car came down the road, turned into the gate, and ground up the gravel drive to the second front door on the other side of Veronica's house.

She thought, idly,
The Professor's home.

*   *   *

She had been widowed now for two years. As a married woman she had lived in London, in a roomy flat near the Albert Hall, but after the death of her husband and on the advice of Frank Kirdy, their lawyer, who was also their best friend, she had returned to the village and to the house where she had lived as a child. It seemed a natural and a sensible thing to do. The children loved the country and the beach and the sea; she was surrounded by neighbours and people she had known all her life.

There had, however, been one or two objections.

“But the house, Frank, it's so big. Far too big for me and two children.”

“But it would divide perfectly easily, and you could let the other side.”

“But the garden…”

“You could divide the garden, too. Plant a hedge. You'd still have two good-sized lawns.”

“But who would come and live there?”

“We'll look around. There's bound to be someone.”

There was, too. Professor Rydale.

“Who's Professor Rydale?” she asked.

“I was at Oxford with him,” said Frank. “He's an archaeologist, amongst other things. A professor at Brookbridge University.”

“But if he's at Brookbridge, why does he want to come to Cornwall to live?”

“He's taking a year's sabbatical. He has to write a book. Don't look so agonised, Veronica, he's a bachelor and perfectly self-contained. No doubt some homely female will come in from the village and take care of him, and you won't even know he's there.”

“But what if I don't like him?”

“My dear, people are exasperated by Marcus Rydale, amused by him, and informed by him, but he is impossible to dislike.”

“Well…” Reluctantly, she had agreed. “All right.”

*   *   *

And so the house was duly divided, and the lawn discreetly sliced in two, and the Professor informed that he could move in when he pleased. After a little, Veronica received an illegible and unstamped postcard which, when deciphered, announced that she was to expect him on Sunday. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday came and went. On Wednesday, in the middle of lunch, the Professor arrived, driving a sports car that looked as though it had been stuck together with Sellotape. He wore spectacles, a tweed hat, and a sagging tweed suit, but offered neither apologies nor explanations.

Veronica, already amused and exasperated, gave him his keys. The children, fascinated, hung around longing to be asked in to help him unpack, but he faded away as unexpectedly as he arrived and was scarcely seen again. Within two days Mrs. Thomas, the postman's wife, was coming and going, keeping house for him, baking him pastries and large sustaining fruit cakes. Before the week was out they had almost forgotten his existence. He settled down, cosy as a squirrel, and in all the months that were to pass, Veronica was only reminded of his presence when his typewriter started tapping at odd hours in the middle of the night, or his little car went roaring out of the gate and up the road to the village, to disappear on strange errands that sometimes lasted two or three days.

But every now and then he appeared to make contact with the children. Sally fell off her bicycle, and by some chance he was driving by and stopped to pick her out of the ditch, straighten the buckled front wheel, and lend her a handkerchief for her bleeding knee.

“He was nice, Mummy, honestly, he was so nice, and he pretended not to see that I was bawling, don't you think that was
tactful?
”

Veronica wanted to thank him, but she did not set eyes on him again for three weeks, and by then she was sure he would have forgotten the incident altogether. But another time James came in for supper bearing a device of chestnut branch and string and a bundle of lethally sharpened twigs.

“What
have
you got there?”

“It's a bow and arrows.”

“It looks deadly. Where did you get it?”

“I met the Professor. He made it for me. You see, you have to keep the string loose when you're not using it, and then when you want to use it, you bend the stick a bit and loop the string on … there! See? Isn't it super. It shoots for miles.”

“You mustn't point it at anyone,” said Veronica nervously.

“I wouldn't anyway, even if I knew someone I hated enough,” he said. “I ought to make a target.” James snapped at the string. It made a satisfactory twang, like playing a harp.

“Well, I hope you said thank you,” said his mother.

“Of course I did. You know, he's terribly nice. Couldn't you ask him in for a drink or supper or something?”

“Oh, James, he'd hate that. He's working, he doesn't want to be disturbed. I think it would embarrass him terribly.”

“Yes, perhaps it would.” He twanged the bow again, and took it upstairs to the safety of his bedroom.

*   *   *

From inside the house, from the Professor's half, came the sound of a window being shut. Then he opened the French windows of his sitting room—which had been the dining room in the days when the house was undivided—and came out into the garden. The next moment, his bespectacled head appeared over the top of the fence, and he said, “I wonder if you'd like a cup of tea?”

For a mad moment Veronica thought he was talking to someone else. She looked round frantically to see who it could be. But there was no one else. He was talking to her. He was asking her to have a cup of tea, but if he had suggested that they waltz together, then and there, around the lawn, she could not have been more astounded. She stared at him. He wore no hat and she noticed that the breeze made his dark hair stand up in a coxcomb, just as James's did.

He tried again. “I've just made a fresh pot. I could bring it out here.”

She jerked herself out of her bad manners. “Oh, I am sorry … it was such a surprise. Yes, I'd love one…” She began, awkwardly, to scramble out of the deck chair, but he stopped her.

“No, don't move. You look so peaceful. I'll bring it round.”