Keeping Secrets (28 page)

‘When?' she asked quickly, knowing this was not the moment to ask.

‘Soon. I must run.'

‘Shall I get dressed and come down? Sam might like the air.'

‘No, no, don't bother. 'Bye.'

And he was gone, forgetting to kiss the baby, running down the stairs, banging the front door. Hilda stood at the window with Sam on her shoulder, swaying back and forth, while the repair man tapped out the rest of the broken glass and Stephen looked at his watch, and paced, still angry. Months later, she remembered this morning and, recalling the heap of broken glass, evidence of robbery and destruction, wondered if she were being melodramatic in thinking it had been a kind of omen.

Nine o'clock. The girls asleep, the curtains drawn hours ago, the house warm and secure. In the sitting room, a fire. In the lamplit kitchen, Alice and Tony, home half an hour ago, finishing supper, about to make coffee, and take it through.

‘Do you realise this is the first time we've eaten together all week?'

‘It can't be. What's today?' Tony tipped himself back in his chair and rubbed his face.

‘Thursday,' said Alice, getting up. She began to clear the table, and put the kettle on. ‘You look absolutely exhausted. It's too much for you, all your cases and all these lectures and things.'

Tony yawned, stretching. ‘I've got another one next week, in Southampton.'

‘Oh, you haven't!' Alice lit the gas and turned to face him. ‘That's ridiculous, Tony, it's too much. You'll be ill.'

‘No, I won't. Stop getting so indignant and come here.' He stretched out an arm, beckoning. ‘Please.'

Alice came and sat on his lap, her arms round his neck, pale silky hair brushing his face. ‘Poor Tony. I wish you wouldn't.'

‘I'm all right.' He moved his cheek back and forth. ‘Mmm.'

‘It's not just you, though, is it?' said Alice, drawing away. She looked down at him, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘It's not very fair on us, is it? We miss you.'

‘I know. I'm sorry. But that's it till after Christmas – I've said I can't take on any more till January.'

‘Good,' said Alice, and got up to switch off the kettle.

‘You know,' said Tony, watching her, ‘it seems an awfully long time since I heard you say that
you
miss me.'

‘I just said it.' She reached up for the coffee jar, and heaped spoonsful into the jug.

‘No you didn't. You said “we”. It's not the same. Sometimes I feel as if Alice has disappeared – she's just part of a “we”, with the children.'

‘Thanks.'

‘But don't you ever feel like that? Lots of women do, don't they? They're afraid of getting lost in their children.'

‘Well, I'm not,' said Alice lightly, and put jug and coffee cups on to a tray. ‘Shall we go through?'

Tony sighed. ‘Okay.'

In the sitting room the fire had gone down; he shovelled on fuel, and poked at it. ‘That's better.' He sank into his armchair, stretching his legs before the struggling flames, taking the cup Alice passed him. ‘Thanks.'

For a few minutes they sat in silence, as the flames grew stronger, and the fire became a fire again, or as much as it would ever be, with smokeless coal. Then Alice said carefully: ‘Tony?'

‘Yes?'

‘Do you remember what I've been saying?'

‘What?'

‘About … about wanting another baby.'

Tony took off his glasses. He rubbed his eyes, and put the glasses up on the mantelpiece.

‘Do you – do you think we could …'

He looked at her across the fireside, serious. ‘Why? Why, Alice?'

Alice looked away.

‘Hilda and Sam?'

‘I suppose so. But it started long before he was born, before I even knew she was pregnant. I remember talking about it in the spring, before you went off to Manchester that weekend – remember?'

‘No.'

‘Well, I did. You know you said just now about losing oneself in one's children – well, I suppose the point is with me that I found myself with mine. Or I lost all the part of myself I didn't like, and couldn't live with. I still feel – as if I'd be nothing without them.'

Tony frowned. ‘That's terrible.'

Alice flushed. ‘Well, that's how I feel. You know what a mess I was, don't sound so surprised.'

There was another silence. Then Alice said, looking into the fire, ‘I thought you knew that. I thought that was the point.'

‘What?'

‘The point of us … being together. That you understood. You're the only one who's ever understood me.'

Across the other side of the fire Tony said quietly: ‘Come here.'

‘No,' said Alice. ‘You come here, if you want.'

He got up, shaking his head. ‘She wants a baby and she won't even cross a room for me.' He came over, knelt down in front of her and took her hands. ‘Are we growing apart? Is that what you feel? That I'm never here? Do you want a baby to bring us back together?'

Alice looked down at him, at his dear, tired, ordinary face, full of concern for her. ‘You're very nice,' she said. ‘Too nice. But I want a baby because I want a baby. It's got nothing to do with us.'

‘Exactly,' said Tony wryly. ‘That's what I thought.'

‘You know what I mean.'

‘I do. But I don't want another baby, Alice, I want you.' He reached up and turned her face towards him again. ‘You. Not Mummy.' He drew her towards him, kneeling up in front of her. ‘I want my beautiful Alice, who thinks I have forgotten her in a pile of papers. I haven't, I haven't. I think about you so much, did you know that?' His arms were round her, he was stroking her hair. Beside them, the fire was very warm.

Alice said sadly: ‘Don't you love the children?'

‘Of course I do. Of course, what do you take me for? But I just don't want any more, is that so terrible? I want us to have time together again. I want to make love to you – just that.' He was drawing her closer, spreading her legs. ‘Not for a baby, for itself. For us.'

Alice put her arms round him, her head on his shoulder, burying her face in her hair. Shall I tell him? she asked herself. Shall I tell him, now, what I blurted out to Hilda in the spring? Why on earth did I do that? She could hear Hilda's voice, sensible, reasonable: ‘But why don't you explain to him, Alice? It's not as if he's insensitive …' Was that what she'd said?

‘Yes?' Tony's hands were beneath her sweater, loving and warm. ‘What are you thinking about?'

‘Nothing,' said Alice, wondering: What am I so afraid of? Do I really trust him so little, after all these years? Do I really believe that if I say to him: Tony, I love you in my way, and I need you, but actually you leave me cold, then he will stop loving me, and go? Yes, she thought, I suppose that's exactly what I believe. And, after all, I've lived with this for so long, I've grown so used to it – what does it matter, now?

‘Look at me,' said Tony, kissing her hair.

Alice drew away from his shoulder and looked, meeting his gentle, tender eyes, and looked away again. She said: ‘I want to tell you something, but I daren't.'

‘Sounds just like the old days,' said Tony, and then: ‘It's all right, I'm teasing. Tell me. Please.'

‘It's just –' said Alice, and the phone began to ring. She made to move towards it, quickly. ‘I'll get it.'

He shook his head, releasing her, getting to his feet. ‘I'd better, it might be Robin, he's in court tomorrow. I said he could ring if he wanted.'

‘Robin?' said Alice, pulling down her sweater.

‘The new articled clerk, I thought I'd told you about him.' He reached for the phone, shaking his head at her. ‘I did tell you, I know I did. Hello? Oh, hello, Hilda, how nice to hear you.'

Tony would say it was nice to hear the bailiffs, thought Alice, and picked up her coffee again. It was almost cold. She sipped at it absently, listening to Tony's kind enquiries about Sam's progress, answering Hilda's questions about his work as calmly and straightforwardly as if she had simply interrupted him doing the crossword, and nothing mattered more than that he should give her his attention. He must be like this with his clients, no wonder he was so much in demand.

He reached for his coffee and sat down. Alice thought: this could go on all night, and then, hearing him describe the lecture on the new Children Act he was preparing for Southampton: it really could. He's not just talking to any old fool, being polite, they genuinely have something to say to each other. Hilda likes hearing about his work, much more than I do; she probably understands it all much better, too.

She had a sudden image of Hilda in a classroom, Sam on her lap, running a seminar. She was perfectly capable of it. And at once there came unbidden memories: Hilda and their father, heads close together over homework after school, sitting at his big desk in the study, talking quietly, absorbed. And another: ten-year-old Alice, struggling with maths, the note of impatience in her father's voice as he tried to explain; her tears, her bolt from the room to the stairs, banging doors. ‘I'll never be clever! I'll never be clever! I
hate
school!' And fourteen-year-old Hilda, coming out on to the landing, coolly annoyed. ‘What's all this fuss? I'm trying to work.' There had been many such scenes, and remembering them now, horribly vivid, Alice felt just the same misery, and sense of uselessness – compounded, not helped, by her mother, who had so clearly felt it a waste of time for her father to bother. ‘She'll be a nurse or something, darling, why don't you leave her alone?' She hadn't wanted to be a nurse or something; she'd wanted to be bright, like Hilda.

Tony was laughing; she came back to-the room with a jolt. Hilda had, presumably, rung in the first place to speak to her, for baby talk. Or had she? Perhaps the last thing she wanted to talk about was babies, perhaps she was only too glad to find Tony on the other end of the phone, and talk about something quite different. Possibly Tony, too, found it a relief to talk to a woman who wanted nothing from him. She got up, and went out to the kitchen, and again, as when she had stood looking at the photographs of Sam's homecoming, she felt the sharp slivers of doubt, and speculation, and mistrust.

The telephone pinged; Tony was calling her. ‘Hilda sends her love. Are you coming back?'

‘In a minute.' But she didn't go back, she began to do the washing-up, and after a few minutes he appeared in the doorway.

‘You were going to tell me something.'

‘It doesn't matter, it wasn't important.'

‘I don't believe you,' said Tony, but he didn't ask again.

The last leaves were falling in the square. The milk came late, the post came later, and then the clocks went back. Hilda wrapped Sam up in double layers on their daily outings. She tucked him into the pram in the hall, and bumped him down the front steps, watched by Anya.

‘It is very cold now, Hilda, I hope he has enough things on.'

‘He has, don't worry. Can I get you anything from the shops?' Sometimes Anya said no; sometimes she said that she would like a breath of air too, and had quite a few things on her list – if Hilda would wait just a moment, she would come with her. Then they would set off together, Anya in brown coat and gloves, lined boots and knitted hat, cooing to Sam in grandmotherly fashion. Hilda suspected her of lying in wait, coat and boots at the ready, and there were mornings when she dreaded coming downstairs, in case this were a day when Anya would decide to accompany her. She felt ungrateful – after all, it was kind to let the pram stand in the hall; nonetheless, she simply did not want always to feel a sense of obligation, to have to listen to Anya's views on bringing up a baby as they made their way down the cracked pavements and up to the High Street. If I had Stephen with me all the time I probably wouldn't even notice it, she thought; it was the fact that Anya, not he, was her daily companion that irked. But Stephen came only once a week, sometimes not even that, and did not always stay. Occasionally Anya asked questions, and made remarks.

‘When is he coming to see you again? I am sure he must be very proud of his little boy.' Once, unforgivably, she leaned into the pram and said: ‘Do you like it when your Daddy comes? He is a lucky chap to have such a good little son.'

‘I hope,' Hilda said coldly, ‘that you won't talk to Sam like this when he gets older.'

Anya flushed, and apologised. ‘You must understand, Hilda, that it is very pleasing to me to have a baby in the house again. Sometimes I say things without thinking.' She sighed. ‘Of course, I should love to have a grandchild of my own, but …'

Hilda said nothing. From time to time Anya's daughter came to stay for the weekend; more rarely, Anya went to stay with her, in Brighton, where she taught science in a private girls'school. Liba was a large, uncompromising-looking woman in brown-rimmed spectacles that made Hilda's look almost frivolous. She had shown no interest in Hilda when she moved in, and now showed even less in Sam. She spoke brusquely to her mother, as if Anya were deaf, or not quite all there; she did, however, seem to like the cats. It seemed unlikely that she would ever give Anya a grandchild.

They were approaching the chemist, where Hilda had to buy nappies and baby lotion. She said to Anya: ‘If you don't mind, I think I'll leave you here. I'll see you later.'

‘Please, Hilda, don't take offence. I didn't mean –'

‘I know. I just feel like being by myself for a little while, that's all.'

‘You are by yourself too much,' said Anya, and bit her lip. ‘I am making things even worse. Forgive me.'

‘It's all right,' said Hilda, feeling sorry for her. ‘Forget it. Come up and have tea with us this afternoon.'

‘Thank you,' said Anya, with dignity. ‘I will look forward to it.' She patted the pram and walked away, a small, hedgehog-like figure making her way slowly through the shoppers. Hilda turned with relief to the chemist, parking the pram at the door.