The Carousel (15 page)

"Oh, Phoebe, I hardly think so."

"Maybe you're right. But let's start being completely frank and truthful; then we'll all know where we stand. Besides, Daniel has a right to know."

"What do you think he'll do?"

"Do?" Phoebe gazed at me blankly. "Why should he do anything?" 

"He's Charlotte's father."

"Leslie Collis is Charlotte's father."

It was just what I had said to Daniel, sitting with him by the pretend fire; trying to be down-to-earth and sensible, jollying him along. But surely, now, things were taking a different course.

"He may not be responsible," I pointed out, "but that's not going to stop him feeling that way." 

"And what do you imagine he's going to do about it?"

"I don't know."

"In that case, I can tell you. Nothing. Because there is nothing that he can do. And because even if there were, he wouldn't do it."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know Daniel."

"I know him, too."

"I only wish you did."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Phoebe sighed. "Oh, nothing. It's just that I'm afraid you've fallen in love with him."

Her voice, as always, was inconsequential, as though she were talking of something of no importance. As a result, I was taken unawares. I said, trying to sound as casual as she did, "I don't think I know what falling in love actually means. It's always been a sort of nonword with me. Like 'forgive.' I never understand the word 'forgive.' If you don't forgive, then you're mean and resentful and grudge-bearing; and if you do, then you're smug and sanctimonious." 

But Phoebe would not be waylaid into this interesting discussion. She stuck to her point.

"Well, 'love,' then. Perhaps that's an easier word to define."

"If you want definitions, then I feel as though I've known him always. I feel as though already we've shared a past. And I don't want to lose him, because I think we need each other."

"Did you feel this way before he unfolded to you the great saga of Annabelle?"

"I think so. Yes. So you see I'm not just feeling sorry for him."

"Why should you be sorry for him? He has everything —youth, a terrifying talent, and now fame and money and all the material things that go with them."

"But how can you discount what happened between Daniel and Annabelle? He's felt guilty for eleven years because he didn't even know if the child was his or not. Wouldn't you feel sorry for any man who had that load of guilt on his back for eleven years?"

"The guilt was of his own making. And he didn't need to run away."

"Perhaps he didn't run away. Perhaps he did what Chips told him to do, which was the only possible, reasonable thing."

"Did he speak about this to you?"

"Yes. And he asked me to go to Greece with him. To Spetsai. That was before he told me about Annabelle and Charlotte. But afterwards we talked about it again, and he said that it wouldn't be any good, because he couldn't go on running away from the inside of his own head."

"Would you have gone? To Greece?"

"Yes."

"And afterwards?"

"I don't know."

"That's not good enough for you, Prue."

"You sound like my mother."

"At the risk of sounding like your mother—who, incidentally, is nobody's fool—I have to say it. You don't know Daniel. He is a true artist: impermanent, restless, impractical."

"I know he's impractical." I smiled. "He told me once that he had a car, and at the end of three years he'd only just learned how to work the heater."

But Phoebe ignored my small attempt at humour and went on doggedly.

"He's unreliable, too, because he's always lost in his own form of creation. It makes him, in a way, negative. Maddening."

"Oh, come off it, Phoebe, you know you adore him."

"I do, Prue, I do. But face him with day-to-day decisions and responsibilities, and I could never truly predict how he would react."

"Are you talking about Daniel as a prospective husband?"

"I wouldn't intrude that far."

"You knew him when he was twenty. You can't judge him by the person he was eleven years ago. He's a man now."

"Yes, I know that. And people mature, of course. But do their personalities change so much? You're such a special person, Prue, I wouldn't want you ever to be hurt. And Daniel could hurt you. Not deliberately, but by the sins of omission. His work fills his life, and I don't know how much room there is left over for personal things like loving people and being with them, and taking care of them.

"Perhaps I could take care of him."

"Yes, perhaps you could, for a little while. But I think not indefinitely. I don't see how it could be possible to stay forever with a man who I knew was afraid of permanency, emotional involvements, becoming trapped."

It was no good arguing with her. I sat saying nothing, gazing ahead of me through the dusty windscreen and seeing nothing. The funny thing was that we both seemed to be on the same side. She put out her hand and laid it over mine. Her fingers were warm, but I could feel the cold, hard pressure of her bulky, old-fashioned rings.

"Don't create fantasies about Daniel. They will probably never come true. And if you expect nothing of him, you will at least never be disappointed."

I was thinking of Charlotte. "I don't believe he will run away from this."

"And I believe that he has no alternative. Perhaps you should run away, too. Go back to London. Get your life in perspective. Ring up that nice young man who brought you the dead chrysanthemums." 

"Oh, Phoebe. " It took a small effort even to remember his name. "They weren't dead when he gave them to me." 

"When you see him again, you may feel quite differently about him."

"No. I shan't do that. Anyway, he doesn't make me laugh." Nigel Gordon. I knew that now I should probably never get to go to Scotland.

"Well, you must make up your own mind." She gave my hand a pat and then sat back in her seat with her hands in her lap. "I've said it. Interfered. Cleared my muddy conscience. Now perhaps we'd better go home and break the news about Charlotte coming to stay to Lily Tonkins. If anything's going to stop her singing "Guard Us Oh Thou Great Jehovah," then that is. On the other hand, she always enjoys a drama, so maybe she'll take it quite well. As well, Charlotte will be turning up at Holly Cottage at any moment, and we've got the picnic to organise, as if life wasn't already sufficiently complicated."

I had forgotten the picnic. Now, starting the engine and letting off the brake, I wished that Phoebe had not found it necessary to remind me.

"Well, I don't know," said Lily when we told her about Charlotte coming to stay. "Leaving her granny and coming here. Seems funny." She looked from Phoebe's innocent face to mine. I hastily smiled, brightly and blankly.

"I suppose, come to think of it, it's not all that surprising. The child's here most of the time whenever she's meant to be staying with Mrs. Tolliver. Just as easy to make up a bed and be done with it."

Phoebe looked relieved. "You are good, Lily. And I hope it won't be too much extra work. I know you've got enough to do as it is just now, but once my arm's out of this dratted cast . . ."

"Don't you worry, Miss Shackleton, we'll manage lovely. Any road, she's no trouble. Quiet little soul. Doesn't even eat much." She moved her eyes once more from Phoebe's face to mine. She frowned. "There's nothing wrong, is there?" 

There was a small pause. Then Phoebe said, "No. Not really. But Mrs. Tolliver finds it . . . awkward having Charlotte living at White Lodge. I don't think they find it too easy to get on together, and we all decided it might be better if she came here for a bit."

"Well, certainly more fun for her," Lily pointed out. "Betty Curnow's a nice enough person, but she was never much of a one for fun. Miss La-di-dah we used to call her when we were all at school together, and marrying up with a sanitary inspector didn't make her any more free and easy."

"Yes. Well, maybe Joshua Curnow isn't the jolliest of men, but I'm sure he's made Betty a marvellous husband," said Phoebe soothingly before bringing Lily back to the matter at hand. "Where do you think Charlotte should sleep?"

"We'll put her in Mr. Armitage's old dressing room. The bed's made up; just needs a bit of an airing."

"And the picnic, don't forget. They're all going on a picnic."

"That's right. Ham sandwiches I've made, and a little salad in a plastic box. And there's chocolate cake with orange icing ..."

"How delicious. I wish I were going ... my favourite . . . what a lovely picnic ..." And Phoebe took herself off upstairs to divest herself of her poncho and change her shoes. We heard her footsteps cross the floorboards above us.

I said, "You are a tower of strength, Lily. That's what Phoebe always says about you." "Get away," said Lily, pleased.

"I can help you. Give me something to do to help you."

"You can string beans for dinner tonight. One thing I can't abide is stringing beans. Give me a carrot to peel or a turnip and I'm happy as a sandboy. But fiddley old beans I can't abide . . ."

So I was in the garden, in the sunshine, in one of Phoebe's rickety old garden chairs, stringing beans, when Charlotte finally arrived. I heard the sound of a car and laid down the knife and the basket and went through to the front of the house, only to find both Phoebe and Lily there before me. Betty Curnow had brought Charlotte, driving Mrs. Tolliver's car. Charlotte was already out of it, and Lily had opened the boot and was lifting out her suitcase. Charlotte wore her grey flannel coat, with her red handbag slung across one shoulder. Her travelling clothes. I wondered how she had felt, putting them on; dressing herself for another journey, another house; shunted from pillar to post because nobody wanted her, nobody could be bothered to take care of her.

"Hello, Charlotte."

She turned and saw me. "Hello." She was very pale, unsmiling. Her spectacles were crooked. Her hair looked greasy, as though in need of a good wash, and somebody —perhaps Charlotte herself—had parted it carelessly and pinned back the front lock with a blue plastic slide.

"This is fun. Do you want to come upstairs and look at your bedroom?"

"All right."

Lily and Phoebe were engaged in conversation with Betty Curnow, so I took the suitcase, and we started together towards the front door. But then Charlotte remembered her manners and stopped.

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Curnow, for bringing me."

"That's all right, love," said Betty Curnow. "See and be a good girl, now."

We went upstairs. The little room that had been Chips's dressing room was next to mine. Lily had been through it like a dose of salts, and it smelt strongly of polish and clean, starched linen. Phoebe had found time to pick flowers for the dressing table, and the open window framed the same view that I enjoyed, of the garden and the escallonia hedge and the flood tide of the estuary beyond.

The room was so small and delightful, so exactly the [148]

right size and shape for a little girl, that I expected a spark of enthusiasm. But Charlotte seemed unseeing; her expression showed nothing.

I set down her suitcase. "Do you want to unpack now, or later?"

"If I could just get Teddy out."

Teddy, flattened, was on the top of the suitcase. She lifted him out and set him on her pillow.

"What about everything else?"

"It doesn't matter. I'll do it later."

"Well ... if you'd like to take off your coat, you can come down to the garden and help me. I'm stringing beans for Lily Tonkins and I could do with a bit of help."

She took off her red shoulder bag and laid it on her dressing table, then unbuttoned her grey flannel coat. I found a hanger and put it away in the wardrobe. Under the coat she wore a blue T-shirt and a faded cotton skirt.

"Do you need a sweater?"

"No. I'm all right."

We made our way downstairs again. In the chest in the hall I found an old car rug, in the kitchen took a second knife from the drawer. We went back out into the garden. I spread the rug and we sat on it together, with the basket of beans and Lily's largest saucepan between us.

"The knives are very sharp. You'll be careful not to cut yourself?"

"I've strung beans heaps of times."

Pause.

"Isn't it a lovely day? You haven't forgotten about our picnic, have you?"

"No."

"Daniel's definitely coming. He'll be here any moment now. He said he'd try and get a lift over from Porthker-ris."

Pause.

"I wanted Phoebe to come with us to Penjizal, but she said that she was frightened that the wind would blow her over the edge of the cliff. Did you remember to bring the Coca-Cola?"

"Yes. Mrs. Curnow said she'd give it to Lily."

"Lily's made us ham sandwiches, just the kind you wanted. And a chocolate cake . . ."

Charlotte looked at me. "You don't have to cheer me up, you know." 

I felt, and with some reason, extremely foolish.

I said, "I'm sorry."

She went back clumsily to slicing her bean.

"Charlotte . . . didn't you want to come and stay with Phoebe?"

"I've never stayed before."

"I ... I don't know what you're trying to say."

"Something's happened. And nobody wants to tell me."

I was apprehensive. "What makes you say that?"

She did not reply, but a movement behind me caught her eye and she looked up, over my shoulder. I turned and saw Phoebe emerging through the garden door. She still wore her hat but had abandoned the gaudy poncho, and now her knotted scarf fluttered in the breeze like a little flag, and the sunlight winked back at us from the gold chains slung about her neck. She lugged, in her good arm, a deck chair, and I got up and went to take it from her and set it up by the rug where we sat. She sank into it, her knees jutting beneath the folk weave of her skirt.

There seemed no point in prevaricating. I caught and held her eye. "Charlotte and I were just talking." Phoebe's gaze was calm and untroubled. I knew that she understood. I settled down on the rung once more and picked up my knife. "She's wondering why she's here."