Blue Bedroom and Other Stories (7 page)

She opened the door, went down the steep stairs, and knocked at the door of her mother's bedroom. She went in and her mother was sitting at the dressing table, putting on her mascara before finally dealing with the dreaded hat. Her hair, fresh from the stylist's hands, curled and fronded about her neck. She looked immensely pretty. Her eyes met Laurie's in the mirror. After a little, she turned on the stool to take a long look at her younger daughter. She said, with a small shake in her voice, “Oh, my darling, you look quite lovely.”

Laurie smiled. “Didn't you think I would?”

“Yes, of course. It's just that suddenly I feel all maternal and proud.”

Laurie went to kiss her. “I'm early,” she said. She added, “You look lovely too. And the hat's really pretty.”

Her mother caught her hand. “Laurie…”

Laurie pulled her hand free. “Don't ask me if I'm all right. Don't talk about Grandfa.”

“Darling, I understand. We all miss him. We all have a great empty hole in our hearts. He should be here today and he isn't. But for Jane's sake, for Andrew's sake, for Grandfa's sake, we mustn't be sad. Life must go on, and he wouldn't have wanted anything to spoil this day.”

Laurie said, “I won't spoil it.”

“It's worst for you. We all know that.”

She said, “I don't want to talk about it.”

*   *   *

She went downstairs. Everything was ready for the wedding reception. Everything was unfamiliar, everything was strange. It wasn't just the house, the unrecognisable drawing room, the massive flowers and the caterer's tables. It was herself. The thin, light feeling of the dress, the delicate shoes, the chill around her neck without the usual heavy fall of hair over her shoulders. Nothing was the same. Perhaps this was the beginning of growing old. Perhaps when she was really old, she would look back and think,
That was the beginning. That was the day when I stopped being a child, when I knew that good things couldn't go on forever.

Still holding her posy, she went through the open French windows and sat on a chair on the terrace, looking out at the garden. Small tables and chairs had been set out on the lawn, sun umbrellas flowered, casting dark round shadows on the grass. Beyond, the garden sloped to the blue waters of the estuary. The masts of the fishing boats showed beyond the fuchsia hedge, and the high-pitched roof of Grandfa's house. She thought of magic and the vagaries of time; of being able to put back the clock. To be twelve years old again, in shorts and sneakers, running down the lawn with her swimming towel under her arm, to collect Grandfa and take him on their daily expedition to the beach. Or to catch the little train into the local town, where he would stock up on tobacco and razor blades and buy Laurie an ice cream cornet, and they would sit on the harbour wall in the sunshine and watch the men working on their boats.

*   *   *

A car drove up to the house from the road. Laurie heard the scrunch of gravel, a door slam, but took no notice, imagining it was something to do with the wedding—a barman, recruited at the last moment, or the postman with greetings telegrams for the happy couple. But then the front door opened, and a man's voice called out, “Anybody around?” and it was, unmistakably, the best man, William Boscawan.

He was the last person she wanted to see. Laurie froze, silent and still as a shadow. She heard him cross the hall and open the kitchen door. “Anybody there?”

Still soundless, she walked down into the heat of the garden and crossed the sloping lawn. The breeze caught her long, fragile skirts and blew the airy fabric against her legs, and the soles of the new sandals slipped a little on the dry grass. She reached the gate in the fuchsia hedge and nobody had called her back. She closed the gate and went on down the path to the cedar house.

The door was unlocked. It had never been locked. She went in and smelt the fragrance of the cedar panelling, and tobacco smoke, and a whiff of the bay rum that the old man had always used on his hair. The narrow hallway was hung with photographs of the ships he had commanded. She saw his huge Burmese temple gong, and the antlers of the wildebeeste he had once shot in South Africa. She opened the door of his living room and went in, and there were the worn Persian rugs, the sagging leather chairs. It was very warm; a bluebottle buzzed against the closed windows on the opposite side of the room. She went across and undid the latch of the window and it slid aside. The stuffy abandoned room was filled with a great gust of air. Laurie stepped out onto the verandah, and the flood tide lapped at the sea wall below her feet, and the estuary was blue as the sky and dappled with sun pennies.

*   *   *

Laurie felt suddenly exhausted, as though, in order to get here, she had walked for miles. Grandfa's chair stood by the telescope. She sat in it, cautiously spreading the skirts of her dress so that they should not crush. She leaned back her head and closed her eyes.

Small sounds began impinging on her consciousness. Traffic sounds from the distant causeway, the slapping waters of the high tide, the scream of a solitary gull. She thought that if she could just sit here, alone, undisturbed, for the rest of the day … not go to the wedding, not talk to anybody …

Somewhere a door opened. The draught this caused through the house stirred Grandfa's heavy curtains. Laurie opened her eyes but did not move.

The door shut again, and then footsteps came through the house. The next moment William appeared at the open window. He stepped over the sill and stood looking down at Laurie. Even in that moment of dismay, she had time to admit to herself that in his morning suit with the best man's white carnation, he looked sensational. The stiff white collar accentuated his tan, his black hair matched the sombre coat, his shoes were gleaming. He wasn't good-looking. He wasn't even handsome, but his sheer masculinity, his smile, his blue and sparkling eyes added up to an attraction that was impossible to ignore.

He said, “Hello, Laurie.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “Aren't you meant to be supporting Andrew and getting him to the church on time?”

William grinned. “Andrew's as cool as a cucumber,” he told her. He went back indoors and returned with a chair which he set down and then sat in, facing Laurie, with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his hands in his trouser pockets. “But a little anxious about confetti in the suitcases. So I came over to fetch Jane's luggage, and we're going to hide it in some unsuspected car. He says he doesn't mind about tin cans tied to the bumper, or even kippers hidden in the engine, but he does object to confetti being spread all over the hotel bedroom floor.”

“Did you see Jane?”

“No, but your father fetched her stuff down. It was then that he realised you were nowhere around, but one of the caterer's ladies had seen you come down the garden, so I came too. Just to make sure that everything was all right.”

Laurie said, “I'm fine.”

“You're not ratting on the wedding?”

“Of course not,” she told him coolly. “And hadn't you better go back to Andrew before panic sets in?”

William glanced at his watch. “It's all right. We've got ten minutes to spare.” He stretched and looked about him. “What a fantastic spot this is. Like being on the bridge of a ship.”

Laurie leaned back in her chair. “Did you know,” she asked him, “did you know that this wasn't always an estuary? Long, long ago, before it all got silted up with sand, it was a deep water channel that reached a mile or more inland. And the Phoenicians came, sailing their ships up on the flood tides, with cargoes of spice and damask, and all the treasures of the Mediterranean. And they would tie up and unload and barter, and finally start back again on their long and hazardous journeys, loaded to the gunwales with Cornish tin. About two thousand years ago, that happened. Just think. Two thousand years.” She looked at William. “Did you know that?”

“Yes,” said William. “But I like hearing it again.”

“It's nice to think about, isn't it?”

“Yes. It keeps things in proportion.”

Laurie said, “Grandfa told me.”

“I thought he probably had.”

Without thinking, she said it. “I miss him so much.”

“I know you do. I think we all do. He was a great man. He had a great life.”

She had not thought of someone like William missing the Admiral. She looked at him in some curiosity and thought,
I don't really know him at all.
It wasn't like talking to a stranger on a train. Suddenly it was easy.

“It's not that I was with Grandfa all that much. I mean, lately I've been away from home more than I've been here. But when I was little, I was with him all the time. I can't even get used to knowing that he's never going to be here again.”

“I know.”

“It wasn't just his telling you things, like the Phoenician boats two thousand years ago. So much had happened in
his
lifetime. The whole world changed under his very eyes. He remembered it all. And he always had time to talk. He could answer questions and explain things. Like how a boat can sail against the wind, and the names of stars. And how to use a compass, and how to play Mah Jong and backgammon. Who's here now to tell Robert's little children all those marvellous things?”

“Perhaps that's up to us,” said William.

She met his eyes. His expression was sombre. She said, “You think I'm being impossible, don't you?”

“No.”

“I know I'm being impossible, and everybody thinks I'm spoiling things for Jane. I don't mean to. It's just that if I could have had a little more time … But this wedding…” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, if only we could have put it off. Just for a little while. I can't bear the thought of having to go into the church. I can't bear the thought of having to smile and be nice to people. I can't bear any of it. Everybody says that Grandfa would have wanted us to go ahead, just the way the wedding was planned. But how does anybody
know
what he would have wanted? They couldn't ask him, because he wasn't here to ask. How can they
know
…?”

She couldn't go on. The tears were spilling down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away, but William took a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and tossed it across to her, and Laurie accepted it wordlessly, wiped the tears with the soft cotton, then blew her nose. She said, hopelessly, “I wish I could just sit here for the rest of my life.”

He smiled. He said, “That wouldn't do anybody any good. And it wouldn't bring the Admiral back. And you know, you're mistaken. He did want the wedding to go ahead. He said as much. He went to see my father about two weeks before he died. I think he'd probably been feeling a little unwell, or perhaps he had some sort of a premonition, but they were talking about the wedding, and the Admiral told my father that if anything did happen to him, then he didn't want it, under any circumstance, to make any difference to Jane's wedding.”

Laurie wiped her eyes again. After a little: “Is that
really
true?” she asked him.

“I give you my word, it's true. Isn't it typical of the old boy? He always liked everything cut and dried, shipshape and Bristol fashion. And I'll tell you something else, too, although I shouldn't jump the gun. It's a confidence, so you'll have to keep it to yourself.” Laurie frowned. “He's left this house to you. He wanted you to have it. His favourite grandchild and his best friend. Now, don't start crying again, because if you do, your face will go all red and blotchy and you'll be a hideous bridesmaid instead of a beautiful one. This is a very happy day. Don't look back over your shoulder. Think about Jane and Andrew. Keep your chin up. The Admiral will be so proud of you.”

She said, “I'm so afraid of making a fool of myself.”

“You won't,” William told her.

*   *   *

And now it was time. In the porch of the ancient church, the bride and her father and the bridesmaid arranged themselves. Above, the clangor of the wedding bells was stilled. From inside the crowded nave came the small whispers and rustles of an impatient and festive congregation. Laurie gave Jane a kiss, and stooped to arrange the skirts of her dress. Jane's bouquet was heavy with the scent of tuber roses.

The vicar, in his starched white surplice, waited to lead the small procession. The church warden gave a signal to Miss Treadwell, the village schoolmistress who played the organ. The music started. Laurie took a deep breath. They moved forward, through the doorway, down the two wide shallow steps.

Inside, the church was dim, awash with flowers and drowned in their scent. Sun shone through stained-glass windows as the congregation, in all its finery, surged to its feet. Laurie did not think about Grandfa's funeral, but instead concentrated on her mother's pink hat, her brother's broad shoulders, the sweetly brushed heads of his children.
One day,
she thought,
when they're bigger, I'll tell them about the Phoenicians. I'll tell them all the marvellous things that Grandfa ever told me.

It was a good thought to hold on to. It was looking ahead. Suddenly, Laurie realised that the worst was over. She had stopped feeling nervous and miserable. She simply felt wonderfully calm, making her way down the flagged aisle behind her sister, stepping in time to the music.

The music. The music Miss Treadwell was playing. It was resounding, triumphant, exactly right for a wedding. It had probably never been played before on just such an occasion, but it bore them up towards the altar on a tide of glorious, joyous sound.

Spanish ladies

A lump swelled in Laurie's throat.
I never knew. I never knew they were going to use Grandfa's music for a wedding march.