Full Circle (20 page)

‘Perhaps if he doesn't want to drive home he could stay with David occasionally,' Louisa suggested, her mind journeying in an entirely different direction. Sometimes, through the months she had suggested they should find a way to spend the night in his flat when they had found a plausible excuse to both be away at the same time, but he had always preferred to find somewhere new to both of them. Booking in as Mr and Mrs Harding they had managed a few escapes, always setting off at different times and in different directions, and returning an hour or two apart. The cottage near Leominster put a new complexion on their situation. It may not alter the lies they had to tell, or the care they had to take to set off in different directions, but it was a little home waiting for them, somewhere they could return to knowing they could shut the door on the outside world and have nothing but each other for a whole night. Compared with couples who lived together permanently, that was so little to ask. It would be no more than an hour's drive to the cottage, and there would be occasions when they could meet there even for a couple of daytime hours. No more booking in as Mr and Mrs Harding and having to familiarize themselves with unknown surroundings.

So a new era began. More often than not they were only in the cottage together for two or three hours, but for Louisa those brief periods were like a drug she couldn't live without. Their relationship was changing; the hours of intellectual discussion grew less frequent. Their time together was driven by physical need. It wasn't a case of one leading and the other following. Louisa knew nothing of his past, and neither did she want to know. For her, until he came into her life she had been aware of the biological facts but for all her half-understood yearning and lonely self-indulgence, she had found nothing compared with the wonder Leo brought to her. It was as if she had been but half alive until he made her a whole person. Now that part of her life belonged to him and only to him but, even so, it wasn't in her nature to wait idly for the hours they could be together.

It sometimes seemed to her that her life was divided into sections, each of them separate. By far the most important was Leo but the others all played their part. By word of mouth and recommendation her business was growing so that she had sufficient work to fill as much of her time as she needed; then there was Bella who came to see her most days, sometimes just with Alicia but occasionally, if there was no one around who could ‘keep an eye' on Harold, bringing him with her; and then, increasingly as that year of 1958 drew to a close, there was Hamish.

Sitting up in bed, Louisa wrote something on those lines to her friend Jess. Some people keep diaries, some drift through life never putting their true feelings on paper. Louisa supposed she fell somewhere between the two for, ever since Jess had set sail for Australia, letters to her had been a safety valve. Had they met face-to-face after so long would she have opened her heart in the same way? She suspected she wouldn't, for Jess's years in another country, first single and then married, would have held them apart. But, on paper, life changes didn't come between them; they'd been kindred spirits for too long for altered circumstances to put up a barrier.

If Louisa could have read her earlier letters it would have brought alive the memory of how she had contrived to make her life sound more exciting than it was. What was there to tell of a weekly routine that never changed? That was before Violet had lifted her out of the tedium set to continue in the same colourless way. If only she'd had more self-confidence she would have forced herself to join some society, any society; but to do that would have meant trying to find a way into a closed circle of friends, or so she had imagined. So she had hidden behind a façade of austere efficiency. And then she had fallen under the spell of Lexleigh where, on her first afternoon, she had met Bella. No longer had she struggled to fill the pages of her letters to Australia. Indeed, to her they were like a confessional, a place to put into words that she had fallen desperately in love with her friend's husband, that her life revolved around the hours she spent with him hidden from the prying eyes of a world which would condemn what they did. Then into her letters there crept another character, one about whom she had no guilt: Hamish. As the months went by his name appeared more often as she described a day fossil hunting on the Dorset cliffs, a visit to the glorious gardens of an ancestral home in Cornwall, a Sunday spent helping in the potting shed at the garden centre, all written as the happy memories tumbled back into her mind.

Jess's reaction to her friendship with Hamish was to suggest that he was in love with her, something Louisa immediately rejected. From his enthusiasm for the transformation of her garden there had developed a friendship that became increasingly important to her. He was such an easy companion and informative, too. Often at weekends when the garden centre was closed they would drive on some outing or other, her interest developing as she learnt from his greater knowledge. Then with the coming of spring they would walk in the countryside. She was grateful to have her Sundays filled, for it was the one day of the week when work stopped at the farm and in the factory too, a day when Leo had no excuse to have to keep appointments. So his freedom was curtailed. He kept an eye on Harold – and Harold kept an eye on him – while Louisa became ever more involved with the McLarens. Occasionally Margaret and her fiancé Dennis would make a foursome with Louisa and Hamish. Even after what Jess wrote, it didn't occur to Louisa that Margaret had hopes – even expectations – that they were forming a quartet that would be permanent. Their outings were always happy times and from the McLaren twins she was absorbing a lot of knowledge about plants and gardening technique. Had she read Margaret's mind and realized the hope that one day she would be included in the McLaren family and even be part of the garden centre, she would have felt less at ease with them.

It was a Friday in April, the morning of a day that seemed to have forgotten the season and taken them straight into summer. Leo had gone to keep an appointment with one of Carters' important agents in Shropshire, saying he anticipated being away all day.

‘He likes days like that,' Bella told Louisa when she called on her way to the butcher. ‘I expect they could get through their business in half the time if they wanted, but he's been asked to stay to lunch and then there will be more chat. He's so much happier now he has an office at home and doesn't have to spend his working hours in that dingy office at the factory. I know he always had days out like today, but even they must have been spoilt by the thought that tomorrow he'd be back in the factory. He gets a lot of work done at home too.'

Louisa nodded. ‘Much better. People must always work better when they are happy in their surroundings, I expect. I know I do as much here, mornings, evenings, any time I want, and yet I always feel a free agent.'

Bella smiled and nodded. ‘It's Lexleigh's magic. I love it here, don't you?' It didn't need an answer. ‘I dragged you out of your workroom and I expect you want to get on. Can I pick up anything for your lunch?'

‘No, I'm OK. I'm warming up a casserole from yesterday. But I must get on. This afternoon I want to take back the papers I've been working on.'

‘We won't hinder you. I just wanted you to see Ali in her new jacket. Remember, it's the one we bought in Gloucester back in the winter and it was much too big for her then.'

‘She looks gorgeous. She really is the prettiest baby. Couldn't fail, I suppose, with you and Leo for parents.'

Bella chuckled appreciatively, told twenty-one-month-old Alicia to wave goodbye to Auntie Lou, and then they were off. Watching her carefully close the gate after them, Louisa was flooded with shame once more. Sometimes it happened to her; it was a physical feeling of emptiness, hopelessness. Going back into the workroom she put away the papers she had been working on. To lie to Bella was to betray a friend who had never shown anything but kindness to her, and that she could do it filled her with self-disgust. Her mouth felt dry; her hands were shaking. She lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply.
Forget Bella, forget the lies, none of it matters. Put it all out of your mind and think of the afternoon that's ahead
. What if Leo had lied about having lunch with Carters' agent – no one was hurt by it. No wife could be happier or blinder to the truth than Bella and, as for an order, he would use all his charm and knowledge and come back with that safely in his pocket.

Those were the thoughts in her head as she got ready for her trip. Yesterday's casserole would stay just where it was until it was heated this evening, for all she would have time for would be a sandwich and a cup of coffee. The last thing she needed was to waste time eating; she meant to make herself as attractive as possible (which in fact was very attractive indeed, but she was far too used to her appearance to appreciate it). Her make-up must be applied with extra care, her hair perfect, her oatmeal-coloured dress and jacket set off by her red neckerchief, shoes and handbag. All this was done to her satisfaction, all thoughts of Bella and deceit pushed to the back of her mind as, just when the clock on the tower of St John's Church at the far end of the High Street struck midday, she came out of the front door, remembering to carry her briefcase lest the neighbours were on watching duty. Another minute and she was in the car, reversing into the lane when she heard the front gate slam shut and Hamish was waving to attract her attention.

‘This is unexpected. What a shame, Hamish. I'm just off to keep an appointment.'

‘Look, Louisa. I mean, well, I mustn't keep you if you're in a rush. Um …' Clearly, something was wrong. She switched off the engine and wound the window right down.

‘Is something wrong? You look bothered. What's up, Hamish?'

‘Now I've got here it's hard to find the right words. And you're off working somewhere. Perhaps I should wait for a better time.'

‘A better time for what? I can wait five minutes. Tell me what's troubling you.' She had grown so fond of him and hated to see him upset about something. He was usually sure of himself. Whatever could have thrown him like this?

‘It's not trouble, Lou. It's finding the right words.'

‘Right or wrong, just tell me what it is. Is it something to do with Margaret? Or are things bad at the nursery? You always seem busy.'

‘No Mags is fine and trade's pretty good too. What sort of a man must you think me, stammering and stuttering like some kid. Lou, you're not blind, you must have seen how I feel about you. You and me, we get along so well. What I'm trying to say is that I love you and I reckon we'd make a good couple. Say you'll agree for us to get married. We're fine together; all the times we've been together we've always got on. We could build happy lives.' He hadn't been able to form the first words, but once he'd started he sounded set to talk uninterrupted. ‘Think of all the good times we've had; it'd work. If you wanted to set aside a bit of time each day to the work you do, then I wouldn't stop you. But I'm old fashioned and I'd expect to pay the bills. If you earned anything then that would be extra pocket money for you. I've been wanting to say this for so long …'

‘I had no idea,' she interrupted. ‘Hamish, I'm truly so fond of you, but I had no idea. I've never thought of us in that way.'

‘I've made a mess of it. I did it badly.'

‘I can't say yes, Hamish. I've never thought of you as anything but a friend, a very, very special friend.'

‘That'll do to be going on with. But think now, Lou, darling Lou.' There! He'd said it; he'd called her his darling.

‘Friendship isn't enough to marry on. You are very dear to me, honestly you are. Marriage needs friendship, but it's so much more.'

‘I know and so it could be. I'd always be good to you; I hold you on such a high pedestal I promise I'd always cherish you.' Then, with a grin that was so much part of his character, his and Margaret's too, ‘Imagine what perfect children we could have – pure pedigree.'

Despite herself she laughed, but all she said was, ‘Hamish, I'm dreadfully late. I must go.'

‘Think about it, Louisa. Promise me you'll think about it.'

‘I promise. But Hamish, you promise me something too. Don't let any of this spoil what we have.'

‘I promise
that
easily enough. Better half a slice of bread than none at all. May I call round this evening and give you a hand weeding the bed?'

‘Thanks, friend.' And she let out the clutch and reversed out on to the lane.

The afternoon at the cottage cleared Louisa's mind of any thought of Hamish, any thought at all except the need to fill the time she and Leo had with the joy of living and loving. From the first moments they both knew what the culmination of their brief hours together would be, yet something held them back from rushing. It was as if into one afternoon they had to cram every aspect of how their shared lives could be. She made coffee, he twiddled with the knobs of the radio until he found music, they talked, yet all the while their imagination was drawing them forward. Perhaps something in Louisa's nature still clung to her hidebound past and prevented her letting him know where her imagination had been as she had driven from Lexleigh; in truth where it still was as she sipped her coffee and tried to give the appearance of relaxing while they smoked and talked. But he understood her better than she realized and, stubbing out his cigarette, he looked at her with that teasing light in his eyes.

‘I think we've paid our dues to convention.' Holding out his hand as she came towards him, he pulled her to lie across his lap where he sat on the settee. She felt the warmth of his hand through the silk of her blouse.

‘To hell with convention,' she muttered. ‘Some people have all their lives, we have just these hours.'