Keeping Secrets (9 page)

Until Hettie's arrival, Hilda had given no thought to questions about children's upbringing. If she had considered it at all, she might vaguely have supposed that all children had a sleep in the afternoons, and Hettie; being a baby of settled disposition, amenable to routine, usually did so. Today, it transpired, she had had a long sleep in the morning, and after lunch, instead of being taken upstairs, she sat playing on the kitchen floor while Alice and Tony washed up.

‘Do let me,' said Hilda.

‘No, honestly, it's fine,' said Alice, not turning. ‘Why don't you go and sit in the garden?'

Hilda wandered out of the door; she sat at the table next to terracotta pots of geraniums and surveyed the patch of lawn, the overgrown Russian vine and Hettie's climbing frame. The garden needed a lot of work; Alice and Tony had bought this house in a rundown state and put all their money and energy into essentials like plastering and rewiring. Then Hettie arrived, and pots of geraniums were as far as they had got out here. Probably just as well, if they were about to start building kitchen extensions. Hilda put her chin in her hands, hearing companionable conversation through the open window; she began to drift off to Norfolk again.

There was a sound beside her and she looked down to see Hettie, who had followed her out and stood gazing at her.

‘Hello.' Hilda wanted to take her on her lap, but felt constrained. Perhaps she was supposed to love only from a distance? But this is ridiculous, she thought, I must have it out with Alice, and she bent to pick her up. ‘Come and have a chat.' The red mark on Hettie's face had completely faded; Hilda stroked the baby skin with her finger. ‘What shall we do?' Hettie sat looking calmly out over the garden. ‘You don't need to do anything, do you? You just are. Not like me – God, I'm restless.' It seemed suddenly impossible to sit still a moment longer. If she couldn't be with Stephen she must walk, or swim, or run round the common.

‘More coffee?' said Alice, appearing.

‘No, thanks.' Hilda looked up at her: she still looked tense and pale. ‘I'm sorry if I upset you,' she said carefully. ‘With the fork and everything. I really didn't mean to.'

‘I know you didn't. Anyway, you're the one who –' Alice broke off, awkwardly, and stood looking down at Hettie, resting comfortably against Hilda. ‘She looks just like you, isn't it funny? Well … what shall we do?'

‘I feel like a walk – perhaps we could take her up to the common? Or perhaps, if you're tired … how would you feel about me taking Hettie up there by myself? You could have a rest.' She hesitated. ‘I mean – only if you'd like me to.'

Alice sat down. ‘You must think I'm terribly fussy,' she said, looking at the air.

‘No, I don't.'

‘It's just –' She gave a sigh. ‘I can't explain. Anyway, take her, that's fine. Tony's going to do some work, I'd like a break.'

‘Really?'

‘Really. I'll just go and change her.' She got up again, holding out her arms. ‘Come on, darling, let's get you changed. Then you and Hilda can go for a walk, to the playground. Yes? Would you like that?'

A few minutes later she stood at the top of the steps, waving goodbye. ‘Have a lovely time. See you soon.'

Hettie, in her pushchair, gazed ahead.

‘We shan't be long,' said Hilda. ‘Have a nice rest.' She set off up the sloping street, as if at the helm. It felt as if she were wearing outlandish clothes: she realised that she was expecting people to turn and look at her, as if she were someone extraordinary, or famous. Dear me, she thought, I am thirty years old and I do believe this is the first time I have ever pushed a pushchair.

She crossed the road to the common, approaching the playground with caution; she sat among the mothers, self-conscious at first but after a while relaxing a little, enjoying having Hettie beside her, watching everything going on. The afternoon sun was warm; she carefully unstrapped her and put her in the sandpit; Hettie sat patting the sand, while other toddlers made excavations, or threw it into the air. Hilda spoke to no one, and no one spoke to her; she felt curiously both anchored and adrift, as if in strange calm waters, and she sat there thinking of Stephen, but less painfully now, as Hettie patted the sand and watched the drifting clouds. After a while she looked at her watch. It was half-past three; she got up stiffly from the low wall, and made her way over to the sand.

‘Come on, Hettie, time to go. I've got work to do.'

Hettie put up her arms; Hilda picked her up and buried her face in her neck. She carried her back to the wall and sat brushing the sand from her dungarees. ‘Had a nice time?'

‘Isn't she lovely?' said a woman next to her. ‘Such a calm little thing, not like mine.'

‘Which is yours?' Hilda asked politely.

The woman pointed to a wild-haired child in a red T-shirt, whirling round and round. ‘She wears me out.' She smiled at Hettie, waggling her fingers; Hettie looked away. ‘I don't suppose she keeps you awake at night, does she?'

‘No,' said Hilda, ‘she's not mine. Well – she's sort of mine: my niece.' She felt a little rush of pride.

‘Your niece? Goodness, aren't you alike, though?'

‘Are we? Come on, Hettie.' She put her, unprotesting, back into the pushchair, and wheeled her home again, down the quiet leafy streets, past family houses.

‘Had a good time?' asked Alice, coming out to meet them. She bent down to Hettie, kissing the top of her head. ‘Hello, darling.'

Hettie smiled, and stretched out her arms. ‘Mummy, Mummy!'

‘Out you come.' Alice unstrapped her, and held her close. ‘Did you miss me?'

‘She was fine,' said Hilda, adding quickly: ‘But I expect she did. Thanks for letting her come, I really enjoyed it.' Still, now they were back she felt she'd had enough for a bit. She carried the pushchair up the steps. ‘How do you fold this thing?'

‘Just kick that little red lever,' said Alice, and showed her. ‘Will you stay and have some tea?'

‘Well …' Hilda hesitated, wanting to go; not sure, either, if Alice really wanted her to stay. Perhaps she needed to have Hettie to herself again.

But Alice said: ‘Go on, just for a little while. Tony's still working; I'll take him a cup of tea and we can have a chat.'

‘All right. Thanks.'

They sat out in the garden, watching Hettie clamber carefully over the small blue climbing frame.

‘A woman in the playground went on about how lovely she was,' said Hilda. She did not add that the woman had also thought she was Hettie's mother.

‘Did she?' Alice smiled, pouring more tea. ‘That's nice.' She put down the teapot and pushed back her hair. ‘Hilda …'

‘Yes?'

‘I've been wondering … while you were out. You are all right, aren't you?'

‘Yes,' said Hilda steadily.

‘I mean … at lunch, in the kitchen …' Alice trailed away, then went on cautiously: ‘You know, if there's ever anyone you want to bring over … I mean, a man …'

Hilda thought: it would have to be a man, in Alice's eyes, wouldn't it? Why else would anyone groan aloud, if not for a man? But then: after all, she's right. And she laughed, and touched her sister's arm. ‘Does it seem
so
improbable?'

‘No,' said Alice. ‘You know what I mean. Is there someone? Do you mind me asking?'

Hilda watched Hettie sit down beneath the climbing frame and pick at bits of grass. She could hear Tony, through the open study window upstairs tapping away on his new word processor, and from a few gardens along the soothing rhythm of a lawnmower, back and forth.

‘There is,' she said at last, and felt her stomach turn over at the strangeness of acknowledging it, and particularly to Alice, who had had so many men in her life, while she herself had had so few.

‘
Is
there? How exciting. Who is it?'

Hilda drew a breath. To speak of Stephen, when she was so used to keeping him secret – perhaps, indeed, relished the intense emotion of keeping him secret – made her feel as if she might choke.

‘He's called Stephen Knowles,' she said slowly. ‘I met him last year, last April, at one of Fanny's parties. Do you know who I mean by Fanny?'

Alice shook her head. ‘I hardly know of any of your friends, do I? But Hilda – you mean you've been having a love affair all this time? Why didn't you tell us?'

Hilda looked at her directly, feeling a little pulse of irritation at this ‘us'. Was Alice only half a couple now? Like Fanny – whenever you asked: ‘How are you?' she always said: ‘We're fine, thanks.'

‘Why didn't you ask?' she said.

‘Because it seemed like prying,' said Alice. ‘But mostly I suppose because I've been so caught up with Hettie and everything …' She rested her elbows on the table. ‘Tell me now. Will you?'

‘What do you want to know?'

‘Well … what does he look like?'

Hilda laughed again. ‘Just like Mummy. That's the first thing she'd have asked, isn't it?'

Alice's expression clouded. ‘I suppose you and Father had the monopoly on higher things. All right, then, tell me something else. What does he do?'

‘He's an architect – not a commercial architect, he restores old houses. And … to answer your question, he's very beautiful, at least I think so – loose-limbed, and … well, and charming, I suppose.'

‘He sounds lovely.' Alice had recovered; she was open, interested, warm; she's on familiar ground, thought Hilda.

‘Yes.' She swallowed. ‘But the main thing about him is that he's married.'

‘Oh.' And a shadow fell across Alice's face.

‘What do you mean, “Oh”?'

‘I'm – I'm just surprised, that's all.' But she sounded more than surprised: she sounded both shocked and disapproving, as if, although in the old days she might have spent the night with any number of married men, she was now, as a wife, completely thrown by the mere idea. ‘Is that a very good thing?'

For a moment Hilda wanted to hit her. Then she got up, saying quickly: ‘I don't suppose it is. Actually, I don't want to talk about it any more, I really don't. It's time I was going, anyway.' She called across to Hettie: ‘Bye!' and turned and walked back through the door to the kitchen, now fresh and clean again, with the flowers she had brought standing in a vase at the open window. A perfect, orderly home. Upstairs, a husband. Out in the garden, a child. I cannot stay here a moment longer, she thought, and called from the bottom of the stairs: ‘Goodbye, Tony, see you soon,' and walked fast down the narrow hall, banging her ankle on the folding pushchair.

‘Ouch.' Tears smarted; she rubbed them away beneath her glasses.

‘Hilda?' Tony was coming down the stairs. ‘You off already?'

‘Yes,' said Hilda, feeling for her car keys in her jacket pocket, not looking at him. ‘Thanks for the lunch.'

‘I didn't do a thing,' he said. ‘It was Alice.'

‘Yes. Well …' She pulled open the front door. Sunshine blazed in the street outside, and a little boy on a tricycle pedalled happily past at top speed. It all looked so cosy, so easy. It made her feel ill.

‘Hilda …' Alice was behind her, Hettie in her arms. ‘You don't understand … Please don't go.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Hilda, sounding not in the least apologetic. ‘I just want to be by myself for a bit. That okay?'

And she ran down the steps to her neat little car, and did not look back. I'll never tell her anything again, she thought as she drove away. Never.

At home, upstairs at her desk, she opened her road map and pored over the route to Norwich, imagining forbidden journeys, unexpected arrivals, open arms. She closed the book with a snap.

‘What on earth was all that about?' asked Tony, and Alice burst into tears.

After that, Hilda and Alice did not see each other again for quite a while. For a week or so Hilda toyed with the idea of sending her a postcard, but decided against it, and did not receive one. She was so used, anyway, from pre-Hettie days, to seeing Alice only infrequently, that after the first rush of emotion had subsided it seemed quite normal not to see her now. In any case, she had too much else to think about: getting her students through their exams in June, and getting herself through the summer holidays, when Stephen, as always, went to Italy for three weeks with Miriam and Jonathan.

‘What will you do?' he asked her, as they lay together in bed on the Saturday morning before his departure. The loose cotton curtains were still drawn, and shadows from a cloudy sky passed over them; down on the terrace the cat flap banged, and then, they heard Anya opening the doors.

‘What I did last year,' said Hilda, naked against Stephen's naked chest. She turned her head to look at him. ‘I'm running a summer school and I shall visit my friends in Wales. Have I told you about them?'

‘No,' said Stephen. ‘Tell me another time.' His fingers traced the outline of her lips. ‘Hilda's summer,' he said. ‘All organised.'

‘But of course.' She slipped her hand beneath the sheet, flat on his stomach.

‘You don't need me at all.'

‘That isn't true.'

His hand took hers; he moved it further down beneath the bedclothes. ‘Will you miss me, then?'

‘What do you think?'

They made love slowly, lingeringly, coming together and falling asleep again until after eleven, when Stephen had to go. Hilda saw him off with a smile, and spent the rest of the morning in tears.

‘You're a fool,' she said aloud, splashing her face with cold water. ‘You're a fool, you're a fool, you're a fool.' And she went back to the sitting room and telephoned Fanny, inviting herself over for supper.

‘Oh, yes, do come,' said Fanny. ‘We're not doing anything, and I'm so pleased you've phoned. Guess what?'