Falling (39 page)

‘I’ll have to get a job, Ma,’ Katya said later. ‘Edwin hasn’t got any money. He owns the house, and I should think he’ll sell it because he mightn’t be
able to stay in that practice after he’s married. When he sells it, I’ll get half of whatever it is. And he’ll pay Thomas’s school fees but I should think that would be
about all.’ Daisy noticed that Katya alternated, as very shocked unhappy people do, between periods of deadpan practicality and outbursts of wordless misery. Daisy rang Anthony at the flat,
but there was no reply. She rang Anna, who said that Anthony kept going to Dublin about some film, but that she knew how to reach him. Meanwhile Katya was welcome to stay with her.

‘How long does she want the flat for?’

‘Well, for the children’s holidays, anyway.’

‘Best if I get Anthony to call you. He wants to make a plan with you anyway.’

Daisy made another sandwich for Katya to have with tea. She remembered how snacks seemed to go with grief. Real meals quickly became uneatable, but sandwiches, biscuits, even a hard-boiled egg
or two do not seem to count as food.

They had tea in the garden. It was after five, and Daisy still had not said anything about Henry. If only the owners had not reclaimed the boat! The cottage was too small for secrets, and, in
any case, she did not want to lie to Katya but, then, neither did she want to impose her happiness upon her daughter at this particular point in her life. She supposed there was also a third
factor. She desperately wanted Katya to like and approve of Henry, to see him as he truly was, and telling her about him – or anyone else for that matter – would always have been a
tricky business. Katya had a proprietorial sense about her that resented any outside intrusion. Daisy compromised, which she knew was almost always a mistake.

They had been discussing what work Katya might do, and Daisy had suggested that research might be a good idea. Before she married Katya had done some for someone writing an historical novel, but
she imagined that literally thousands of undergraduates were looking for that sort of work. Daisy told her she would ask Anna if she had any contacts.

They were in the kitchen and Daisy was putting the tea leaves into the compost bin, when Katya said how serious she was about her compost.

‘It’s not really me. It’s Henry. He takes compost very seriously.’

‘And, of course, you must do what your gardener tells you.’

‘Actually, darling, he’s become much more of a friend than a gardener. I mean – he
is
the gardener, of course, but I don’t treat him like one.’

‘How
do
you treat him?’

But before Daisy could answer she saw him from the kitchen window coming from the garage up the path to the back door. Katya saw him too.

‘Don’t tell him about me,’ she said. It was an urgent plea and there was no time to argue.

There ensued one of the most awkward evenings Daisy could remember. The fact that neither Katya nor Henry knew the salient facts about one another made for strained conversation in general and
increasing discomfort for all three of them. Daisy managed to convey to Henry that Katya did not yet know about them: he was remarkably quick to pick that up, and of course he knew that Katya had
left her husband but was in no position to tell her that he knew. Katya, for her part, resented his being there at all, since it prevented her – as she had decided – from any further
confidence. And Daisy felt that she was, in some sense, betraying both of them. She was afraid that Henry would feel that she was ashamed of him. She saw him battling with Katya’s hostility
in the face of repeated snubs, and his gentleness, tact and unfailing courtesy kindled a love for him deeper and more complete, she thought, than she had ever felt. She loved him then for his
virtue – for his loving kindness that could embrace her child however Katya behaved to him. There was a brief respite from tension when Katya went upstairs to wash. Daisy offered her a bath
and she said she might – she’d see.

‘You haven’t told her, then?’

‘I couldn’t. I was about to when you came back. She’s dreadfully unhappy.’

‘I can see that. He’s got someone else, has he?’

‘Yes. Darling, you are being sweet to her. She’s not usually like this. She doesn’t mean to be rude. Well, I suppose she
does.
When she saw you coming up the path she
asked me not to talk about her situation in front of you, and there simply wasn’t time to argue.’

‘Do you want me to go to the pub? Disappear for the evening? Would that help, my darling love? You look so anxious. How long is she staying?’

‘I don’t know. Just a night or two, I think. She wants to have my flat in London, and I’ve got to get hold of Anthony to ask him to go so that she can have it. She wants to
take the children there.’

They could hear the water running upstairs. He put his arms round her.

‘It’s just – she hasn’t the faintest idea about us.’

‘I think she has.’

‘I do love you.’

‘I know you do.’

‘It just seemed – somehow heartless to tell her when she was wanting to tell me how awful things are for her.’

‘I don’t want to leave you when you are so anxious.’

‘Let’s have supper, and see how things go. Make one of your wonderful drinks for us all.’

While he was doing this Daisy went up to the large spare room where she found Katya sitting on the end of the bed. She had borrowed Daisy’s bathrobe and was combing out her newly washed
hair, which hung in heavy dripping locks round her shoulders.

‘Thought I might as well wash it as you had a shower.’

‘I came up to see whether you want anything.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t mind a clean shirt, if you’ve one to spare.’

Daisy returned with her largest shirt.

‘Darling, it really would be all right to talk about things in . . . front of Henry.’

‘That means he’s having supper with us, I suppose.’

‘Yes. He lives here.’

‘How long has that been going on? He wasn’t when I saw him before.’

‘Since I had my fall. The doctor said somebody must be here. He was extraordinarily good to me. Anyway, I promise you he would be sympathetic and discreet.’

‘I don’t want him to be anything. I feel so humiliated – you must see that I don’t want to talk about it. In front of a perfect
stranger.’

Daisy had to leave it at that.

They had the drink, and what Henry called a fill-up, which was really a second drink. And they had supper. The drinks had been in the garden, but Katya said she was getting bitten, so they moved
indoors. Conversation was sticky. Katya behaved as though she was interviewing Henry for some unknown position or job, but he was unfailingly patient and courteous in his replies.

‘How’s your garden designing going? I shouldn’t have thought that there were many clients rich enough to employ you in these parts.’

‘Well – no. I usually have to go further afield. But I have been more or less fully occupied here lately.’

‘Have you been trained as a nurse as well?’

‘No,’ Henry replied evenly. ‘It just comes naturally to me at my age.’

‘Your age?’

‘I told you last time. Sixty-five. I was caretaking a boat on the canal for friends—’

‘Oh, yes. And you’ve always been interested in writers, and you were trying to get a divorce and you were a gardener’s boy at Rackham.’

‘Rackham?’ Daisy had never heard him say that.

‘That hideous elongated castle in Wiltshire. It was famous for its gardens, and the park—’

Here the telephone rang and Daisy escaped to answer it.

It was Anthony.

‘Anna tells me that you need your flat back. The thing is, could you be your usual kind, wonderful self and let me
camp
in a corner of it for just one more week – or possibly
two? My film’s behind schedule, but the
second
they have no need of me I shall vanish. Anna said it was Katya – well, she’s a dear
friend
– I’m sure we
wouldn’t be in each other’s hair . . .’

‘I think ten days would be all right. Her children are going to join her, but that isn’t until the twenty-first. She’s here now – can I ring you back? Where are
you?’

He was in Dublin, just for the day.

‘She’s having rather a horrible time. If she agrees, you must be very nice to her. Edwin has gone off.’

‘How
silly
of him! Mark you, he always seemed like a piece of reproduction furniture to me.’

‘Anthony, please don’t say that sort of thing to her.’

‘Oh dear! How I am misunderstood! I am probably the most intelligently tactful person you have ever met. I shall commiserate, I shall cheer, I shall think of a new way for her to do her
hair – don’t go off in a rage. Anna says that if I want to see you I shall have to brave the country. So I might just pop down with her for a day – and possibly a night
she
says, but I think a day will suffice.
That
will have to be within the next two weeks, because I am off to Rio at the end of the month. A little hol. You see how I love you? For nobody else
would I brave the ghastly country. Do you remember Rodrigo? Bandy legs, but a marvellous bone structure . . .’

‘Do stop talking about so many things. Give me your Dublin number. But you are being nice about the flat. I
am
grateful. Now, number, please.’

In the kitchen, Henry had cleared the table and was making coffee. Katya was not there.

‘She’s gone for a walk round the garden.’

‘Oh.’

‘I think the best thing is for me to go to the pub. When I come back, I’ll just doss down in the little spare room.’

‘Perhaps that would be best. Oh, darling, I’m
sorry
it is all so difficult. But she’s going to have my flat – for the summer, anyway.’

‘Ah. If you get the right chance, it might be easier if you did tell her about me. I feel a bit of a – well, you know – fraud.’

‘So do I. It doesn’t suit either of us, does it? Telling lies.’

‘Darling! I would never tell you a lie.’

He was gazing at Daisy so earnestly that she wanted to kiss him.

‘I know. I meant we were sort of telling her one.’

‘Well, see what you can do,’ he said. He had just put the coffee things on a tray when Katya came back into the kitchen.

‘Are you off?’

‘Yes. I’ll say goodnight to you, as you may have shut up shop by the time I’m back.’

‘Goodnight. Are you by any chance going to a pub?’

‘I am. Do you want me to get you cigarettes?’

‘I’ll give you the money.’

‘Don’t bother about that. You can pay me in the morning.’

‘Thanks. Twenty Silk Cut.’

When he had gone, Katya said, ‘That was tactful of him.’

‘He is that. He realized you were unhappy, and thought we’d rather be on our own.’

‘He’s right there.’

As they went, with the coffee tray, into the sitting room, Daisy said, ‘Why are you so disagreeable about him?’ She might have added, ‘and rude to him’, but she did
not.

‘I don’t honestly know, Ma. I quite liked him when I came here when you were still in the States.’ She accepted a cigarette. ‘Sorry I keep bumming them. I
didn’t buy enough at the station. That wasn’t Edwin ringing, by any chance, was it?’

‘No. Are you expecting him to?’

‘No.’

‘It was Anthony,’ she said, and told Katya about all that. ‘He’s out most of the time, and in Dublin some nights, and he’ll be gone before the children’s
school holidays.’

‘I don’t mind
him!
He pretends to be heartless and funny, but he cried like anything when we went to the cinema. And when you married Jason. Sorry, I didn’t mean to talk
about that.’

‘I don’t mind. I’m over him. You see? One does get over things – in the end.’ But this elicited a fresh burst of tears.

‘I do see now what it must have been like for you,’ Katya said, when Daisy had found her some paper handkerchiefs.

‘I had Jess.’

‘Not when Jason left you.’

‘No. But I had work. We ought to talk about that for you.’

‘I’ve saved a thousand pounds,’ she said: this clearly seemed to her a very great deal of money. ‘I saved it from the allowance Edwin gave me, and I sold some bits of
jewellery he gave me. That would be enough, wouldn’t it, to pay for the flat and the children until the end of their holidays?’

‘You don’t have to pay for the flat, darling. Any of it. And I should think Edwin will give you some money for them, but if he doesn’t we’ll work something
out.’

‘I don’t think he will, because he disapproves of them being in London. When we talked about it, he said it was bad for them and they’d be much better off in the
country.’

Daisy stopped herself from saying that they’d be a lot better off if he didn’t abandon them for someone else.

They spent the rest of the evening thinking of work, jobs, careers, during which time Daisy realized that there was an element of unworldliness about Katya that nearly twelve years of marriage
had simply enhanced. Edwin had paid all the household bills with the consequence that Katya had only the haziest idea about what things cost. She also had very little idea of what she might earn,
although she did realize that a 2:1 in history did not in itself guarantee her any particular wage or salary. There was also the problem of who would look after Caroline while she was earning
enough money to keep her. And then there were the holidays – when there would be two of them. ‘How do people like me manage? What do they
do?’
Katya was exhausted, and
Daisy could see that she was beginning to be frightened. ‘I’m nearly thirty-eight – nobody will want to employ me. I’m not
trained
for anything.’

At this moment Daisy remembered that she had not called Anthony back. She said this and added that perhaps Katya would like to talk to him, and then they could arrange about the flat together.
Katya agreed to this.

While she was telephoning, Daisy slipped into the garden to smell the stocks. The silence and the darkness – the moon was obscured – and being alone were a relief, and she realized
how exhausted she was. And if she felt like that, how much more must poor Katya! When she had finished talking to Anthony, Daisy would make her a hot drink and give her a sleeping pill. She walked
slowly round the cottage, past the sitting-room windows where she could see and almost hear Katya in animated conversation. When she turned the corner towards the herb bed she came up against a
firm, still figure standing motionless in the dark. A fleeting moment of pure terror, and then she knew it was Henry. He had put a hand over her mouth and was whispering, ‘It’s only me
– Henry.’ She was in his arms and he was kissing her – kissing her as though they had not met for weeks, and indeed she felt as famished for him.