How Bright Are All Things Here Read online

  But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope . . .

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked.

  I nodded. ‘Scotch and soda, please.’

  I watched him walk over to the bar. He was only just a little taller than me and very slim. No, thin. His suit, probably not the best cut in the first place, hung loosely as if he’d recently lost weight. That, and his general greyness, made me wonder whether he’d been ill.

  He put the drinks on the mirror-topped metal table between us, and lowered himself back into the lounge chair. ‘I’m Alec Henderson, by the way.’

  I was debating between ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘Liz’ when my mind slipped a gear and I said, inexplicably, ‘Bliss . . . Bliss Adair.’

  Unsettled, I held out my hand, and we clasped very briefly. I guessed that he was not used to shaking hands with women in his line of business. Whatever it was.

  ‘Bliss. What a lovely name.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Bliss,’ he repeated, drawing out the sound. ‘Like a sigh of delight. Rather romantic.’

  I looked at him sharply. That was unexpected from the little grey man. Was he flirting with me?

  ‘Actually, it’s a nickname,’ I said, tapping a cigarette and lighting it myself. ‘When I was small, I couldn’t say Elizabeth. And what do you do, Mr Henderson?’

  ‘I’m an engineer. For the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works.’

  I was familiar with the initials MMBW on manhole covers but he obviously felt compelled to explain further.

  ‘Water supply,’ he said.

  ‘Very worthy.’

  ‘Worthy? Yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘And necessary,’ I said. ‘Think of bubble baths.’

  He laughed, and I thought, You know, little grey man, you are really, almost . . . well, attractive.

  Back in my cabin, I sat at the desk and wrote another letter to Edward.

  There’s little that one can write about ship life. Either it’s a completely detailed record of every day’s routine and every day’s separate conversations, or one omits it altogether and simply details the few hours spent in the ports. When were you here last? Just after the war? We went ashore. I did a bit of shopping.

  Whereas, in fact, during the few hours in port my senses had been drenched with colour and texture and noise and smell. Thousands of small intense impressions stamped themselves onto my mind; the launch ride with its contrast of coolness from the blown spray and heat from the sun; the limbs of the helmsman shining like dark oiled wood and his turban the bright pink of an iced cake; the huge liner sliding past, with scarcely a ripple or a splash, as we clambered off at Post Office Pier. Then, in the hot bright streets around Steamer Point, there were the high-lipped camels pulling carts, little brown boys asking for English pennies, veiled women, open shops with men sprawled inside smoking and everywhere the smell of dung and spice.

  I was tired in the afternoon, so I just sat and read in the saloon. I had a drink with one of my fellow passengers – a boring little man, some kind of engineer on his first trip to England. A bit of a lame duck, I’m afraid. But he’ll serve the purpose and keep me safe from more annoying pests.

  I didn’t send it. That was part of the arrangement; nothing on paper. But even these unsent letters, which could quite harmlessly have purged me of longing and desire, were dry and cool, filtered through what I understood to be Edward’s likes and dislikes. Despite the famous charm (his biographer went so far as to call it ‘charisma’), Edward wasn’t actually interested in people. What he liked was to move them around like chess pieces on a board, taking them in or out of play as it suited him. Through Edward’s eyes, Alec was reduced to a cardboard cut-out, of no interest but some rather negative use. A bit pathetic, really. A boring little man.

  God! Think of it! Unfed hope . . .

  I’d told Alec that he should look me up when he got to London. I hadn’t meant it, but ten days after we disembarked, he phoned and invited me to lunch. I didn’t recognise his voice – or, at first, his name. I meant to say no. I think I did say no. But he misunderstood me, or perhaps I wasn’t clear, and I found myself being collected by him from the shop.

  I was wearing the wrong shoes with my grey suit, and though that bothered me enormously, Edward’s face on the waiter and the man next to us seemed only natural. Oh yes. His loss was like a spell that conjured him up everywhere.

  Edward had done the whole thing very smoothly. The flat, for instance. Before I left for Australia, he’d asked for my key. The owners had been redecorating the whole building – I’d seen that for myself – and he talked about the end of the lease and the possibility of a better flat on the fourth floor.

  ‘Perhaps I should look for something more private.’

  ‘Why not St John’s Wood?’ I joked. ‘Isn’t that where mistresses live?’

  We spoke on the telephone three or four times while I was away.

  ‘How are you, darling? Frightfully busy?’

  ‘And you? Frightfully hot?’

  We might have mentioned the Test cricket. I didn’t think to ask about the flat. I simply expected him to take care of it all, for things to be just the same when I returned to England.

  He may have rung the shop to see when I would be in, but it was a surprise to me and my heart leaped like a girl’s as he walked through the door. I remember that he stopped to run his fingers along a bolt of cloth; it was a heavy chocolate-brown linen and his long hands looked pale against the material. How pale they would look against my skin, still golden from the cruise. My skin, his hands. His skin. Us. He promised to meet me later in the day, but not at the usual place. He gave me an address.

  It was a coffee bar, the Carioca. No hint of Brazilian beach about this place on a typically soggy London evening. No flesh, certainly. The girls were well covered in furry jumpers and tight skirts and textured stockings, with long shaggy hair that they flicked and twirled as their young men talked. The men – boys, really – kept their duffel coats on. What an odd choice of meeting place, I thought, and then realised that the patrons were too young to know or care who he was. The espresso machine and the jukebox made conversation impossible, so we went outside. A raincoated man lurked at a discreet distance. The secrets police, we used to call them.

  Out of the warm fug and noise of the cafe, in the sobering dark, everything turned cold. He had come to tell me it was over. He could no longer ask me – no, it was unfair of him – there was his duty, his calling – the party, the government, the prime minister – his future, my future – he would treasure the memories of a beautiful thing. He knew he could trust me. He mentioned trust a number of times.

  Edward? Edward who? After all these years, I am still cryptic. There were so many considerations, from national security to domestic embarrassment. Remember the Profumo affair? The lid had been well and truly blown off that particular can of worms, and the press was only too ready to peck away at a Tory sinner like Edward. Transvestites, homosexuals and fetishists make mere adulterers look pretty tame, but it would have been juicy enough. Lovely wife, beautiful children, links to the palace, cabinet ambitions . . . Perhaps he’d had a warning. Or an ultimatum.

  I remember looking at him, hearing what he was saying, and yet still not understanding.

  ‘But why?’

  In the end, patience fraying, he said something nearer to the truth.

  ‘I can’t afford this any more,’ he said. ‘It’s too risky. It’s not worth it.’ Pause. ‘For you. For both of us. It’s not –’

  ‘Not worth it.’

  ‘No.’

  Edward tilted his head towards mine as if he was going to kiss me, but he changed his mind, and a couple of seconds later a sleek black car emerged from the drizzle. He hesitated, and then with a spring in his step that was almost jaunty, walked over, opened the door himself, and with easy grace slid into the back seat and was driven away.

  I’d suggested the restaurant, a lit
tle Greek place. It was dark, garlic-smelling and unfashionable. Georgio, the waiter who looked like Edward, chatted as he poured the wine.

  ‘It’s good to see you again, madame. Did you enjoy your trip? I would recommend the fish today. Some more bread?’

  ‘Yes, lovely, the fish,’ I said. ‘Yes, more bread.’ I waved him away, wishing I knew a spell of banishment. Edward, begone. Edward, change back into a sad-eyed Greek man with a limp.

  ‘They know you. Do you come here often?’ asked Alec.

  I shook my head. ‘No. I mean, yes. Yes.’

  With Edward, of course. I was beginning to reel at the absurdity of the situation. I wanted to go home. It was madness to have come out with this man. I should be at home crawling around on the floor, banging my head until blood came out of my ears.

  Finally, Alec put his hand over mine, and said, ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I sipped my wine. ‘I’m just a little tired, that’s all. I’ll be all right when I’ve eaten.’

  The fish came, complete with one staring eye. I could feel my stomach heave in anticipation. I got up, mumbling something about feeling ill, meaning to leave, get a cab, go home. I had vague thoughts of the gas oven, or a hot bath with gin and a razor, but I knew I was too much of a coward. It would have to be just the gin.

  I am a tall woman. Standing, I could see over the top of the cafe curtains into the street. And what did I see? Edward, across the road, walking towards the restaurant with a young woman on his arm.

  Ten days later, I was in York Minster having an epiphany.

  I think I must have had a breakdown. Oh, not in the strict psychiatric sense; I was still able to sign cheques, meet with clients and even enter a tube station without wanting to hurl myself off the platform. You will be all right, I told myself daily. You have been before. Love is like the flu; you get over it. But then I heard the news of the child’s death.

  It was Bridget who told me. She’d spotted it in the morning paper. These days, the tabloids would have had a gala of screaming headlines and grainy paparazzi snaps of the parents, the tiny coffin, perhaps even – à la Diana – the wrecked, bloodstained car, but back then it was a very small news item, no picture. I would have missed it.

  My first thought was: Good. Let him suffer.

  My second was: He’ll come back. He’ll need me.

  Well, darling, what do you know? He didn’t.

  I had to go to York. A photo shoot for House & Garden.

  This bold restoration needed a modern touch, and under the exacting eye of Liz Adair and Bridget French, the former warehouse has been given a . . . et cetera, et cetera.

  Priceless publicity. Knowing the state I was in, Bridget offered to go in my stead, but we both knew that I was the one they wanted. Alec offered to accompany me.

  I found myself booked into the vast Victorian railway hotel, with Alec in an adjacent room. He took me down to the dining room for dinner; he walked me back up the stairs and all but put me to bed. The next morning he made me eat breakfast and ordered the taxi. During the photography session he even found my misplaced compact so I could powder my face. So nearly invisible were his ministrations that I believe I scarcely noticed him until it was over.

  The shoot was finished by mid-afternoon. Alec and I had a drink at the hotel, but it was too quiet, and after a couple of gins I found it hard to settle. I glanced at Alec – so solicitous, so grave, still so grey – and the thought crossed my mind that it might be rather fun to seduce him.

  ‘Let’s go out,’ I said.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘I don’t care. Sightseeing. Anything. Just out.’

  We ended up in front of York Minster, watching the pigeons jump and flutter.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ said Alec.

  ‘Really, Alec, I –’ But already he was steering me through the doors and up one of the side aisles. He plucked a Blue Guide from his coat pocket and began reading snippets about shrines, box tombs and the different varieties of marble, alabaster and freestone.

  I laughed, already a little hysterical from the gin.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. Come on, let’s go!’ I urged, fidgeting to be out of there, but he started reading epitaphs.

  ‘Anabella Wickham, died 1625. Listen. The sweetest Temper, the softest Manners, the most exquisite Beauty . . . She sounds like you,’ he said.

  If only you knew, poor little grey man, I said to myself, and as I turned to him the setting sun cleared itself of cloud, illuminating the stained glass of the west window, and I realised that the stone tracery formed a heart. As if that wasn’t enough, at that precise moment, a bird outside in the courtyard flew upwards, silhouetted against the glass, and the organist began to play.

  It’s dark in here, and light outside, and the bird is flying through the heart to the light, and the music is a golden spiral rising up, up from the flagstones and the tombs and the votive candles through the arches to the roof to the sky. The shimmering music and the heart and the bird pierce me, all at once. Suddenly I’m stripped of my reasons and my ready answers. I am here in the light, naked and trembling with my heart wide open, and all the beauty and sadness and pity in the world flow through me, hurting and healing at the same time. I turn to Alec and his plain face in the light is beautiful, and I know then and there that he is going to be the love of my life. Not happily ever after, but forever and ever, till death us do part, like all those husbands and wives whose lives and deaths are written here in stone. After Gerald and James and Ross and Felix and Antony and Piers and Edward; after all of them, the charming ones, the weak ones, the handsome ones, the golden ones; here it is, here in this place, offered by the bird and the heart. A promise. You will be my joy and my desire. I will love you. I will because I say I will.

  I put my hand on Alec’s arm.

  ‘It’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”,’ he said, turning towards me.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said, and kissed him full on the mouth.

  Let me stop you right there. You are imagining a beatific Bliss at the climax of spiritual ravishment, rather like that amazing Bernini thing of Saint Teresa in Rome. Well, coitus interruptus. I wasn’t moved beyond myself entirely; in a heartbeat, I was back to my wicked ways. Oh yes. In today’s parlance, it was all about me.

  It was wrong of me. Wrong to use Alec to save my soul. I didn’t see it that way at the time, of course. In my fairly fevered imagination, I came swooping down from on high to grant him some sort of divine boon. Well, imagine! There I was – charming, beautiful and right out of his league, darling.

  In my scheme, by loving Alec, by devoting myself to him utterly, breaking with the past, eliminating the past, I was absolved of my crimes. They were many, and you know them all. The broken hearts, the withered hopes, the trail of damage. All shriven, shriven.

  Bells tolled, choirs sang, angels flew upwards and I damn near apotheosised on the spot and rose to the heavens through the Gothic ribs of the cathedral like a sainted helium balloon. But let’s get back down to earth.

  We returned to the station hotel. To my room.

  PAULA AT THE SHOP

  If only.

  If only he’d always displayed the stock like this, all clearly priced, one wall of Monet posters in soft greens, blues and pinks, another of edgy monochrome cityscapes in simple black gallery frames. He’d put baskets of odd mounts, frames and board on the footpath; a red SALE sign and a line of coloured bunting fluttered between the verandah posts. The tables and shop fittings had been advertised. All the framing equipment was already gone. If only Dave had put this kind of energy into running the business, he wouldn’t be dismantling it now. He’d gone off, light-hearted, to drive Graeme’s truck, leaving her to sit with the failure. Yes, she blamed him. He was negative, passive. He didn’t try. Why, why, why?

  Then came the predictable scarification of her own conscience. Dave had been a press photographer when they met. He was cynical and dismissive about his wo
rk – ‘just fat cats and footballers,’ he’d said – but as they fell in love he revealed earlier ambitions. He said that magic word, ‘art’. Paula didn’t feel she was creative herself but she had a kind of veneration for those who were, so she encouraged him. First the photography studio, then the gallery, now the framing shop – were they his idea, or hers? It turned out that Dave wasn’t a natural for small business. He didn’t have a knack with people and he got bored and lonely on his own. He must have known that about himself – after the first failure, anyway. So why had he done it again and again? To please her, to impress her? Was it actually all her fault?

  Am I responsible? she thought. The therapist’s voice came to her and she winced.

  Sales were slow the first day. The next was busier, but only intermittently. Why hadn’t she brought a book? Paula was reduced to cleaning out her handbag and paying bills over the phone. She texted Sam and Sam’s wife Sara, and then her friend Iris.

  After a little hesitation, she rang Anne.

  ‘Hi, it’s Paula,’ she began, bracing herself. Talking to Anne was rarely easy, but lately every conversation had turned into a minefield.

  ‘I’ve only got a few minutes,’ said Anne. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘It’s Bliss.’ Paula was dismayed to find a sob lurking in the back of her throat.