Some Old Lover's Ghost (15 page)

Marriage to Joscelin de Paveley was not quite what Daragh had expected. After their honeymoon, he had returned to the de Paveley house and estate believing himself to be possessed of unlimited wealth. He could have the motor cars and horses he wanted, the fine clothes, the holidays abroad. He walked around the Hall, glancing at paintings, touching furniture and glassware, knowing that the possession of all this made him worthy of respect. The ability to walk into any shop he chose and buy whatever he wanted distracted him from the memory of the scene with Sarah and Tilda Greenlees. Tilda’s coldness, Sarah’s laughter, and his own nauseated realization that he had been made a fool of, yet again, haunted him.

Jossy’s lawyer, a dull fellow called Verney, called at the Hall to discuss death duties. It had not previously occurred to Daragh that, because of the recent death of Jossy’s father, the estate must pay a large sum of money to the government. It seemed iniquitous, somehow. Mr Verney left Daragh with lists of property, rents and income, and a copy of the tax demand. Daragh spent a day and a night in the study with a bottle of Scotch, trying to make sense of it all. The affairs of the rich were unexpectedly complicated. Though the estate’s income was large, most of its assets were tied
up. Some tenancies were for the incumbent’s lifetime, and Daragh, looking at rows of figures, was reminded of the declining profits of agriculture. The de Paveley estate was frozen, committed, bound up in trust funds and endowments.

Swallowing his pride, Daragh went to see Christopher de Paveley, who ran the farm. The steward’s house was bleak and damp, the jagged cracks in the walls held together with iron bands, the interior a jumble of disparate pieces of furniture and cluttered bookshelves. Christopher de Paveley was unhelpful and unimaginative. It was obvious to Daragh that though he presumably carried out the day-to-day running of the farm with reasonable competence, Christopher de Paveley had no understanding of and no interest in the wider problems of the estate. The boy Kit skulked in a corner, bent over a book, not even acknowledging Daragh. Daragh gritted his teeth, sensing their resentment.

That night, he tried to discuss the estate with Jossy. She gaped at him adoringly, and offered no useful comments. Daragh was shocked that someone could have so much and just take it for granted. She knew neither what crops the Hall farm grew, nor the extent of their holdings. Jossy wasn’t ashamed of her ignorance; she just assumed that he, Daragh, would deal with that side of things, as her father had done.

He could have asked advice of his neighbours, but he did not, because he knew how careful he must be not to betray his origins. He would rather have made wrong decisions than courted humiliation. He told Verney to sell the row of cottages in Southam and a couple of distant fields. There were some dull little paintings of horses in the study; he bundled them up and sent them to an auction house and received back a large sum of money. With the profits from the sales and a sizeable chunk from his bank balance, he was able to pay the death duties.

The baby was due towards the end of November. The specialist’s bills were enormous; Daragh questioned them with Dr Williams from Ely. Daragh’s mother had, after all, given birth to six children with the minimum of fuss and only a midwife in attendance.
Dr Williams pointed out the dangers of Jossy’s condition – a danger to both mother and child – and Daragh was obliged to write the cheque. That Jossy could not even manage to do competently the simple female task of having a baby galled him. Her adoration of him, which had in the early, unreal days of their marriage seemed reassuring and a balm to the torment that Sarah Greenlees had inflicted, increasingly confined him. He was used to independence, to freedom of movement. Jossy followed him about like a puppy dog, coming up behind him and nuzzling his neck when he was working in the study, trailing around the estate after him if he was five minutes late for tea. If he so much as looked at another woman she was at his side, all over him, advertising her ownership.

On the morning that they told him that the baby was coming, Daragh drove to Ely and fetched Dr Williams, and then a peculiar hush descended on the Hall. At midday, Daragh took a horse out from the stables. His mother had had her babies within an hour or two; he could not understand why it was taking Jossy so long. When, after a long and vigorous ride, he returned to the house, he expected to be greeted with the news that he was now the father of a fine son, but instead Dr Williams was waiting for him, a serious expression on his face. Daragh’s stomach jolted, and he thought for one terrible moment that the child was dead. Dr Williams explained that Mrs Canavan was still in labour and that Mr Browne, the specialist, was driving up from London to attend her. When Daragh pressed him, Dr Williams admitted that he was concerned for the safety of both mother and child. The doctor went back to Jossy, and Daragh sat down on a sofa, his clasped hands against his forehead, and prayed. He needed a son: he had not realized until this moment just how much he needed a son. A son would justify this marriage, would erase the memory of that madwoman laughing at him.
You have got what you deserve, Daragh Canavan
. The recollection still made him shiver.

The specialist arrived and disappeared upstairs. The housemaid served Daragh a dinner he could not eat. It was dark outside,
and the wind battered dead leaves against the panes. Daragh longed to drink, but was seized by a superstitious fear that his self-indulgence would be espied by a critical God, and punished accordingly.

The baby was not born until ten o’clock the following morning. By that time Jossy had been more than twenty-four hours in labour, and Daragh had despaired. When the doctor came to him he knew that it was to tell him of the death of his wife and child. Dr Williams had to repeat twice his invitation that Daragh come to the nursery to see his daughter, before Daragh understood. He felt a stab of disappointment that he had not the son he had longed for, but he followed the doctor upstairs. When he looked into the crib, his disappointment vanished and never returned. His child was beautiful and perfect. She had Jossy’s dark eyes, but they were framed by Daragh’s own finely drawn face. Though the nanny tutted, he lifted his daughter in his arms and took her to the window. When he kissed her soft, pale brow, tears stung his eyes and he knew that his life had altered for ever.
Caitlin
, he whispered, and he watched her tiny fists open and close like sleepy starfish.

Then the doctor coughed and said, ‘Mr Canavan. I must speak to you about your wife …’ and he had to turn and give the baby back to the old woman, and follow Dr Williams into the privacy of the adjoining dressing room.

Dazed and exhausted, Daragh struggled to concentrate as the doctor told him that Jossy was very ill, that the difficult pregnancy and labour had almost killed her, that though there was now hope that she might recover, she must have no more children. ‘You do understand, don’t you, Mr Canavan,’ said Dr Williams, ‘that there must not be another child. You must make sure of that. It is your responsibility.’

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

I could feel myself becoming reclusive, lost in the past, so I accepted an invitation to an old friend’s birthday party. By the time I arrived, guests had spilled into every room in the house. My host shrieked at me, pressed a glass into my hand, and then disappeared to welcome more guests. I saw a couple I knew from university and pushed through the crush towards them. They’d just had their first child and the conversation revolved around disposable nappies and organic baby food. I retreated and curled up with a bottle of champagne on the window seat.

I drank, and became more sociable. I talked to a dancer who’d worked with my sister and then to a beautiful actress who knew Charles Lightman. I found myself chatted up by a man in a blue jersey who worked for the National Rivers Authority. With a couple of sticks of celery and a bowl of pistachio nuts, he demonstrated to me how a lock works. The pistachio nuts rolled onto the floor and we scrabbled about, picking them up, and he became quite pink and flirtatious. Then, as I stood up, a hand touched my shoulder and a familiar voice said, ‘Rebecca?’

My knees wobbled. I looked round. Toby.

He wore a blue silk suit and his brown hair was cropped closer
to his head than I remembered. ‘You look well, Toby,’ I said. ‘Terribly … successful.’

During the months since we had parted, I had had time to work out that, to Toby, success is the most important thing. Money and power are part of it, of course, but recognition is paramount.

‘You’re looking good, Rebecca. I like the hair.’

‘You used to prefer long hair.’ My voice was sharp. ‘You must have changed, Toby.’

He said, ‘Perhaps I have,’ and I wished I hadn’t drunk so much. I wanted to be cool, detached, in control, but it’s hard to manage that on half a bottle of Bolly.

He glanced round. ‘Hell of a crush in here – shall we go somewhere quieter?’

I mumbled something about needing the loo, detached myself from him and ran upstairs. When I looked down over the banister, Toby was talking to the tall actress who knew Charles. I found my coat on a bed and escaped, ducking through the crowds in the kitchen, stumbling over the dustbins and empty wine bottles that cluttered the back yard. I blew the last notes in my purse on a taxi to take me home, falling drunkenly out of the cab just after one o’clock.

I didn’t even attempt to go to sleep. Instead I heaved out a cardboard box that Tilda had given me the previous day and began to go through the contents. It was mostly press cuttings, in no particular order, the paper yellowed and torn at the edges. Recognition was obviously of little importance to Tilda. I wondered, as I flattened out strips of newsprint and stuck Scotch tape along the fragile folds of magazine pages, what it was that she most cared about. Family, perhaps. Words and phrases from the cuttings seized my attention. ‘Dame Tilda Franklin attends the opening ceremony of a hostel for the young homeless in London …’ ‘A lifetime devoted to children …’ ‘You cannot learn before you have loved, and you cannot love until you know that you yourself are lovable …’

I felt safe again. The distant past was controllable and
unthreatening. With the exaggerated care of the rather drunk, I sorted the cuttings and photographs, trying to establish a chronological order. By half past two I had reached the late Seventies, when Tilda had supposedly retired. I had the beginnings of a headache, but I felt rather pleased with myself.

I searched in the box again to check that I had not missed anything and discovered an envelope wedged between the overlapping slats of cardboard. I drew it out and glanced at the address. Daragh Canavan Esq., it said, in round, loopy handwriting. It was addressed to the Savoy Hotel. For the second time that night my heart began to beat very fast. There was that strangely exciting sense of the past – which in spite of everything always seems more closely allied to fiction than to reality – touching the present. The envelope was already slit open; I took out the single sheet of paper.

It was not from Tilda, but from Jossy.
My darling
, I read,
You have been away four days, and it seems like four years. I miss you so much – everything is dull and pointless when you are not here
. More in the same vein, and then, as if an afterthought,
Caitlin misses you too
.

There was no date on the letter. What a tiresome man you were, Daragh Canavan, I thought. Beautiful, but tiresome. And what a slavish, degrading letter to write. Had Jossy realized by the time she had written that letter that Daragh did not love her, had never loved her? Did she believe that her devotion would ultimately secure his love when, of course, that sort of unreturned passion is more likely to repel? Did she write that last, desperate ‘Caitlin misses you’, guessing that it was the child who brought her errant husband home?

I shut the letter away in a drawer in my desk. When finally I slept that night, I dreamed of Toby, but he had Daragh Canavan’s face.

I spent Sunday nursing my hangover, finishing organizing the cuttings and listing by date the achievements and incidents described in them. I was aware of the telephone lurking
ominously in the corner of the room, but it did not ring. On Monday morning, I telephoned Oxfordshire to speak to Tilda about a gap of a few years I had discovered in the press cuttings. Was there another box, or had she disappeared from public life for a while?

A voice I did not recognize answered the telephone. ‘Melissa Parker,’ it said briskly. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I’d like to speak to Tilda Franklin,’ I began. ‘I’ve the wrong number, perhaps—’

‘I’m afraid Tilda isn’t well. She’s in hospital, actually. I’m her daughter. Can I help you?’

The shameful thing was that my first emotion was one of disappointment and frustration. I’d wanted to find out what happened next. But almost immediately following came concern, and a measure of guilt.

I explained who I was, and Melissa Parker told me that Tilda had angina, but was not thought to be in any danger. She gave me the name of the hospital and the ward number, and when I put the phone down, I stood uncertainly, staring at the heaps of notes and files I had amassed over the weeks. Then I grabbed my jacket and my bag and left the house.

I bought narcissi, tulips and freesias from the florist at the corner, and put the bouquet in the back of my car. The poor thing didn’t want to start, which should have warned me. Although it was April, the temperature had plummeted, and the roads that were in shadow were still glazed with frost. I made it most of the way along the motorway before the Fiesta’s engine began to stutter and cough. I cursed and begged, but it made no difference, and I just managed to swing onto the hard shoulder before it died completely. I’d given up my AA membership a few months ago, in a ruthless economy drive, and though I opened the bonnet and peered inside, the blackish mass of tubes and wires told me nothing. Trying not to think of maniacs attacking lone women drivers, I walked the quarter mile to the nearest telephone. Then I waited for what seemed like hours, becoming colder and colder, for the breakdown truck. Eventually it came, and the mechanic
muttered about blocked fuel lines and towed me away. At the garage, peering in my purse, I discovered that I had two pounds and fourteen pence. The mechanic looked at the car and sucked his teeth and directed me to the bus stop. The bus lurched and rumbled along country lanes, so by the time I reached Oxford I felt sick as well as frozen. I found a cash machine and drew out some money, but I was so cold it was a struggle to punch in the buttons of my pin number. I stuffed the cash into my purse, and went to the tourist office to ask directions to the Radcliffe Infirmary. It was only then that I remembered I’d left Tilda’s bouquet on the back seat of the Fiesta.