Encounters (45 page)

It was weeks before she brought herself to write to Stephen and longer before she posted the letter. It was brief and defiant and though she didn’t realize it, it was a little wistful too, as she thought of Philip’s kiss which she hoped would blot out all memory, in time, of the man to whom she wrote.

Stephen read it in the tube, wedged shoulder to shoulder in the morning rush hour, scanning her writing with the same care he usually gave the City prices. Inside, he felt sick.

From the page came a shutter-speed glimpse of the countryside emerging into summer; of lavender beds and pots of rosemary, of the worries of small but growing mail order sales and the drying sheds. And the picture of a woman who had already changed, relaxed and grown in confidence. And at the end the casual mention of her manager. ‘Philip is marvellous. Dad was lucky to find him and so am I.’ No more.

Stephen closed his eyes, his hand automatically reaching up for the jointed handhold above his head as the train jolted across the points. He wondered why that morning’s investment meeting had seemed to be so important – and why he’d let her go.

At first Helen found Philip’s possessiveness refreshing. It was exciting to have someone to escort her with such obvious pride. She relished his admiration, but always at the end of the day she hesitated and drew back.

‘Let me stay, Helen,’ he would murmur in her ear as they sat before the log fire, which they still lit for company in the cool of the darkness, and she would close her eyes and whisper, ‘Not tonight, Phil. Not yet.’

It had been too easy. Too obvious. She did not trust herself. Her excitement when he came near was real, as was her intense longing for him to efface the memory of Stephen and take over her life and yet, at the same time, she began to resent him a little. He was too possessive. Twice now he had countermanded her orders in the nurseries in front of the men and had laughed at her when she tried to argue. A nice laugh, but nevertheless a laugh. The last time it happened she asked him back to the house for a coffee and they had a blazing row.

Two days later she was in the White Swan with a couple of the men at lunchtime and she saw Philip in there with someone else; a pretty dark girl whom she had never seen before. He had his arm around her.

She didn’t say anything and very soon she was able to leave. The misery and jealousy she felt surprised her. Could she really be in love with him after all? He was fun and attractive and there was no doubt she was very strongly drawn to him, but this was not what it had felt like before.

But had she been in love with Stephen?

For several days she scarcely spoke to Philip as they met in the sheds or in the office over the account books or as she walked slowly down the lines of staging in the greenhouses, watching the seedlings turning to sturdy plants beneath his care. Then she knew she had to say something.

He looked down at her gravely as she approached him in the sunny privacy of the box hedges. Then he smiled. ‘When you first came here, Helen, you said you had no regrets. That wasn’t quite true, was it?’

She stared down at the grass. ‘It was true, Phil. It’s just I need longer than I thought, that’s all. There’s been so much to adjust to – so much that is different. Don’t hurry me, please. Give me a little space.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ll give you space, Helen. However much you need. But don’t take too much time, if you can help it.’ He touched her gently with his finger. Then he turned away.

She watched him go without moving. Suddenly she felt like crying.

The next day it rained, and the day after. The stream gurgled and creamed an angry red brown and the trees scattered their leaves into the rushing flood waters. With a shiver Helen turned her back on the scene and closed the door. She had just seen Philip drive away for a weekend she might have gone on too, the tyres of his car throwing muddy spray into the air. She felt bleak.

Summer though it might be, she lit the fire to cheer herself and knelt before it, feeding it wet, spluttering twigs and she almost did not bother to go to the door when she heard the knock.

It was Stephen.

They stared at each other in silence, her initial incredulous joy at seeing him damped almost instantly by their mutual hesitation. His reserve, his tight, careful restraint as he kissed her forehead and followed her into the sitting room were unchanged from the last time she had seen him. He did not fit at Leabrook. He never would.

They talked. They even laughed. They ate together and drank the wine he had brought with him. But something still held them apart and at last she slipped onto her knees on the hearth rug to feed the fire with logs and stare miserably into the flames.

He watched the shadows leaping on her hair. It was softer, more natural than he had ever seen it; prettier. She looked good without make-up, dressed in her old jeans. She seemed relaxed. Happy.

They talked some more and she began to sense a change in him. Puzzled she watched his face, yearning to reach out and touch the taut lines which ran from nose to mouth. Outside the rain battered the windows and they heard a gust of wind in the chimney and for a moment she thought of Philip.

‘I’ll show you to your room, Stephen,’ she said at last and he did not argue. On the landing he took her hands for a moment and held them in his. Then he turned from her and closed the door behind him.

She lay awake a long time, thinking about him in the dark.

It was dawn when she was wakened by the distant sound of shouting. She lay staring at the ceiling, listening to the endless rain still beating down outside, then alerted by a sudden unexplained tremor of fear she got up and ran to the window. In the faint light she could see the stream spilling over its banks into the garden and car park, glittering across the lower fields. In the distance she could see several men working in the mud, piling sandbags, trying desperately to hold the water back from the greenhouses and the terraces. Frozen with horror she stared. One man was directing the others and with a moment’s anguish she thought it was her father, his boots, his tattered raincoat, even his old hat which had still hung downstairs in the hall. Then she realized that it was Stephen.

Throwing on her clothes she ran downstairs, grabbing her own boots, her own raincoat and running outside into the rain.

He had heard the urgent shouts of the men while she had slept, it seemed and had let himself out into the dawn, sizing up the situation and taking charge, in Philip’s absence, of the rescue operations. The taut lines had vanished from his face. The restraint had gone. Suddenly she could see the man behind the image she had always known.

By mid-day the level of the water began to fall back. It had come to within an inch of the top of the bank near the greenhouses.

Philip returned at half past twelve, leaping from his Land-Rover and running across the bridge to the shop. Helen smiled at him wearily. ‘It’s going down, Phil. We seem to have escaped the worst of it.’

He gave a grim smile. ‘If we have then we’re the exception. There’s been bad flooding down the valley. I came back as soon as I heard, but the road is impassable in places. I had to go round –’ He broke off suddenly, staring out of the window. ‘Who’s that?’

Helen did not have to look. ‘Stephen Spencer. A friend of mine from London. He arrived at just the right moment.’

Philip gave her a sharp glance. Then he was striding out of the door. Helen stared at the ground. The sunlight had broken through the clouds suddenly and struck blinding reflections from the wet ground where he had been standing.

His coat over the back of the old chair, the sleeves of his guernsey rolled up to the elbow, Stephen was sketching a map of the property at the work bench among the trowels and dibbers and the old pots of twisted thyme when Helen brought in the tray of coffee and sandwiches. Philip, with a couple of the men, was peering over his shoulder.

‘Raise the bank here, and here,’ he was saying, the pencil stump clutched between the mud-caked fingers, ‘and take a bit out of the corner here, to allow for a faster water flow and you’ll be safe in future. See?’ He glanced up at Philip, who nodded thoughtfully.

Helen slid the tray in front of them. ‘Since when have you been an expert on water engineering?’ she asked softly.

It was Philip who answered, glancing up at her with the wistfulness of a man who knows he has already lost. ‘I’ll bet he has talents you never even suspected,’ he said.

Helen laughed. ‘I’m beginning to think he has,’ she agreed. She held his gaze for a moment and then she looked away, blushing. It was obvious he knew and, somehow, she thought he understood.

It was Stephen who walked with her that evening as the sun set in a blaze of stormy red.

He did not speak. For a while he watched with her the bats flitting out of the darkness, then he turned and took her in his arms. There was no hesitation this time; no reserve as he brought his face close to hers. For a long time they were silent, clinging to each other, in the dark. Then softly he spoke.

‘I was a fool in London,’ he said, ‘and I almost didn’t find out in time.’

‘I
often think,’ someone was saying in the strident tone of a person who wishes their opinions to be heard, ‘that James is a perfect fool to continue having these parties. They are so deathly boring.’

With pre-judged malice the owner of the voice leaned across and tapped her – it had to be a her – cigarette on the arm of one of James’s more beautiful bronze nudes. The ash fragmented into the crook of the curved elbow and lay dusty.

Had she not seen me, this malicious woman, or was she deliberately trying to provoke me into defending my brother? Perhaps she didn’t care, or more likely, didn’t know me. Why should she?

‘Meet my beautiful sister, Laura,’ James had said to the first few guests to arrive. They had looked, smiled, accepted their drinks – and turned away. Soon James had grown bored with introducing me. I was obviously no ace to palm before this glittering troupe. As they moved slowly round his studio, delicately touching this, ostensibly averting their eyes from that, James turned to watch them, anxious, frowning behind the eyes, although his outward manner too was arrogant.

‘For God’s sake put some fig leaves on some of those figures, James,’ I had said at dinner, still confident then, still excited.

He laughed and ruffled my hair. ‘This is London, sweetheart; you don’t have to pretend men don’t have balls here.’

I blushed. I was mortified, angry and embarrassed. Was I then so provincial?

The studio was hot and crowded now and smelt of perfume and, strangely from the so glitteringly arrayed, of sweat. Smoke and drink fumes mingled and spiralled towards the high skylight windows. The gentle murmur of conversation had grown to a steady roar as story competed with story, joke capped joke.

‘Smile, Laura; who’s going to want to talk to you if you look so miserable all the time?’ I could hear my mother’s words echoing down through the years. She had said that to me sometime at nearly every children’s party I had attended. And she would have said it at every teenage party too had she not then been left at home.

Her advice made no difference. Other people seem to acquire some strange charisma at parties which I cannot find. Parties leave me cold, claustrophobic and embarrassed, both for myself and for those I see around me. I am too detached and with the best will in the world, even with a serious attempt to get drunk, cannot lose that detachment.

I dangled my glass, empty already, from nervous fingers and watched the owner of the malicious voice as she circulated out of earshot. She was very beautiful: hair, jewellery expensive and tasteful, her dress a masterly combination of chic and casual. I envied her. Almost. Why, though, I thought sadly, does she accept James’s invitations if she despises him so much? I wondered if James knew how she really felt. Perhaps it was a game they played: he asked her, although he knew she didn’t want to come, hoping she wouldn’t; hoping she would: I didn’t know which. And she came, afraid perhaps to miss out on a Social Occasion, or knowing that James didn’t want her there; or knowing he did. I sat down, thoughtful.

There were several chairs in the studio and they were all empty but mine. No one dared to sit; if they did that they might miss something. Or they might see themselves as I saw them, dispassionately; packed, noisy and rather silly.

I decided to play a game. I would pinpoint the best-looking man in the room and follow him with my eyes until he turned and saw me. If I could entice him towards my chair I would buy myself a present tomorrow; if I couldn’t I would offer to wash the glasses after the last guest had gone. It was a daring game for me; a London game.

I sat up and began to survey the room.

‘Hey; would you just move your chair a bit, gorgeous? You’re right in the way there.’

Instead of retaining my cool and telling him to go to hell I leaped to my feet guiltily. Gorgeous indeed! The tall, handsome noble lord had not even looked at my face. He and I had been introduced. I remembered the purple satin of his shirt. I watched as he moved away, conscious only of the décolletée blonde at his side. As far as he was concerned I was just another statue.

Start the game again.

I looked around carefully, determined not to be shifted or put off again. It was strange that there should be so unattractive a selection of men present. Or was I suffering from sour grapes because none of them were mine? I tried again, leaning a little to get a better view of the far side of the studio.

‘It’s Laura, isn’t it?’ Someone was standing over me again. At least this one knew my name. I peered up at his face.

He grinned. ‘We met yesterday at Solti’s preview, d’you remember?’

I did not. ‘Really?’ I borrowed my mother’s most withering tone. One day I’ll buy myself a lorgnette; that will, I am sure, keep the whole world at bay. The young man looked suitably crestfallen and I was immediately repentant. ‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m hopeless at names.’ I shrugged, hoping he would forgive the commonplace insult which we all hand out so often.

Amazingly he seemed to, as people do, anxious to give a second chance.

‘I’m John Divers,’ he commented modestly. I should have been immediately on my guard, but I was past caring. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Please could you get me another drink?’ I handed him my long-empty glass.

I watched him push his way through the people, purposefully elbowing them aside with an enviable offhandedness. I saw Madame Malicious totter slightly to his thrust and felt myself grinning. I hoped he would come back.

‘You look a bit happier at last,’ James was momentarily above me, hovering, anxious. ‘For God’s sake circulate, Laura. A fine hostess you’ve turned out to be.’

Hostess! It was the first I’d heard of it. To have heard James curse when I arrived on Thursday with my suitcase you would have thought I was the last person on God’s earth he would have allowed to act as his hostess.

‘Where did you dig up all these dreary people from Jimmy?’ I asked a little too loudly. I was beginning to sound like
her
.

He shushed me, looking, scandalized, over his shoulder. ‘Someone’ll hear. You’ve had too much to drink.’

‘I haven’t. I’ve only had one glass and now I’ve lost that.’ It’s true I was acting a little drunk and it wasn’t entirely deliberate. Perhaps some strange defence mechanism had come into play to give me courage or comfort.

‘Well, for God’s sake keep your voice down,’ James hissed and he had gone.

I was stung by the injustice of that, as I had scarcely spoken a word all evening, but I was still enough in awe of big brother James to feel chastened and subside, miserable again, onto my chair.

To my amazement John Divers reappeared with my glass. ‘You don’t happen to know who that ravishing dark girl over there is, do you?’ He leaned down confidentially, close to my ear. So that was it. The inevitable bucket of cold water.

‘I gather she’s a handful,’ I murmured sweetly, sipping my wine. ‘A nympho; I shouldn’t try your chances there unless you’re pretty hot stuff.’ It wasn’t true of course; I had no idea who the poor girl was.

The room was becoming unbearably hot; the pale chiffon of my dress clung to me uncomfortably. I wanted to pick the skirts up round my thighs, rid myself of the horrible cloying tights and kick my shoes up towards the smoky glass skylights. High above them the summer sky was at last growing dark. For a wild moment I contemplated actually doing it. I would have to jump on a table of course; such dramatic gestures could not be practised in a dark corner, or discreetly behind a marble nude.

What were the chances of getting away with it? Tights are not a garment one can strip off gracefully. One is too liable to fall flat on one’s face.

I should have taken James’s advice. ‘Don’t bother with tights and don’t wear a bra with that dress,’ he had said coming in, to my acute embarrassment, as I was dressing. ‘Don’t be silly, Laura. I am your brother, so you needn’t cover up your tits. Don’t be such a prude. Nude women are my job.’ And when reluctantly I took away my hands he had been quite approving. ‘I must get you to sit for me while you’re here.’

But in spite of his ridicule I had insisted on my bra and tights.

I compromised now by kicking off my sandals and closing my eyes for a minute, allowing the party to revolve around me.

‘You know, he’s really quite talented.’ Strange how words sort themselves out and emerge from the general babble when your eyes are shut. ‘I think James is a fool to allow all these people into his studio. They might damage his stuff.’

‘And they’re not really interested in him as a sculptor, you can tell.’ Another voice.

So I had two sympathizers in the room. I opened my eyes and looked around but in the tide of coming and going the owners of the voices were lost. I picked up my sandals and walked slowly across the floor.

People were sitting on the spiral stair which led up to the small gallery bedroom, with its curtain wall. I thought of the quiet oasis I would find up there among the coats and climbed purposefully upwards.

I had drawn back the curtain and was inside the little room before I realized there were people on the bed. Two people. One of them was Sandra, my brother’s lady. The other was not my brother. It was too late to withdraw; too late to pretend I hadn’t seen; too late for them to hide. The three of us stared at one another in stark embarrassment for a moment and then Sandra began to pull the bedspread up around her shoulders. Her dress lay tangled on the floor at my feet.

‘Don’t tell James,’ she said.

I backed away, drew the curtain again and went to sit with the others for a moment on the spiral stair, resting my head against the wrought iron newel post. Below me the party raged like a forest fire. Automatically my eyes sought out James. He was standing alone for a moment, watching. Perhaps he was watching for Sandra. I pulled myself wearily to my feet and made for the kitchen.

There too were people. Someone was bleeding profusely into me sink. ‘Can I help?’ I asked distantly, half of me still upstairs, an invisible, sick voyeur. Several pairs of eyes turned towards me.

‘Do you think it’s an artery?’

‘He did it on a glass.’

‘I hope James doesn’t mind; there’s blood all over the tea towel.’

They greeted me with relief, like children who, when the game has stopped being fun any more, turn for reassurance to the nearest adult. I knew at least where the plasters and antiseptic were because James had stuck a chisel into his thumb the night before.

‘Apply pressure to the wound,’ I directed, as he had done then, bringing out the first aid kit.

They obeyed.

‘Sit down so I can fix it’

He did.

It was really quite a bad cut. ‘It might have to be stitched.’ I recognized the purple shirt and felt foolishly even spitefully pleased. So his lordship had to recognize me in the end. ‘You really ought to see a doctor, you know.’ I glanced up and met his eye.

He grinned, his face a little pale. ‘You’re doing fine. Thanks awfully. Silly of me.’ He laughed uncomfortably. ‘Always get a bit nervous at do’s like these.’

You too, I thought. I would never have guessed.

‘Damion, darling, are you all right?’ I was elbowed out of the way by a vision in frothy lace. But Damion was now concerned more with the spillage of his blood than with dalliance with his lady. ‘Shut up, Sue. Let Laura get on with it. She’s patching me up beautifully.’ So he had even remembered my name.

The circle of admirers watching my every move with the antiseptic was still there, morbidly curious.

‘Make some coffee, someone,’ I directed without looking up. ‘Damion could do with something hot.’

Amazingly I heard the kettle being filled. Then James was there, fussing and apologetic that one of his glasses should have perpetrated the damage. I left them to it.

Slowly the party thinned. I saw Sandra, dressed and hair immaculate, go to James and take his hand and stand on her toes to kiss his chin. For the first time that evening his face relaxed and he smiled. Then she looked across and saw me watching.

‘I wondered if you’d come and have some dinner with me one day.’

I remembered his name this time: John.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It might be fun.’

My eyes still followed Sandra and James. He had his arm around her and was talking to her with pathetic eagerness. ‘Yes, John, that would be nice.’ I smiled at him, knowing I was second best, but still happy. I rather liked his face.

He grinned. ‘You were right about the nympho lady,’ he whispered confidentially. ‘Much too hot for me to handle.’

‘God, I do hate parties,’ James said when the last guest had gone. He threw himself down on the studio couch and stretched his arms high above his head. Dawn was breaking and high above the skylights tiny puffs of pink-tinged cloud were floating in the blue-black of the sky. Cigarette smoke still drifted beneath the high ceiling; the smell of it clung everywhere.

‘Why do you give them, then?’

He rubbed his eyes slowly and then looked hard at his knuckles. ‘I often ask myself that.’

‘Do you think anyone enjoys them much?’

He laughed. ‘I sometimes wonder. I know I used to. But now …’ He sighed.

‘It’s a sort of ritual, isn’t it? Everyone comes, even when they don’t want to; everyone pretends to enjoy themselves, even when they aren’t; everyone talks to the people they’d rather never see again and miss the chance of meeting the people they want to see because no one remembers, or knows, to introduce them. Relationships are made or broken and next day no one can remember why.’ I looked at him sadly.