nice enough. I have myself to look after too. Anyone who says they don’t is lying.’
Obviously Alice had been admitted in a hurry, and her clothes had been tossed on to a chair over by the window. I picked up her grey flannel trousers. They were stained and smelt of vomit. A black cashmere jumper was just as bad. Alice’s beautiful, expensive clothes. I knew she would mind about those. Gently, carefully, I folded them. ‘I’ll get these cleaned and delivered back to you,’ I said.
She dropped her arm. ‘Why are you doing all this for me, Rose? You never liked me much.’
‘I hate to see Sam hurt.’
‘So why?’
‘Because you were always honest,’ I replied. ‘You may have hurt Sam but you never led him up the garden path. You never promised anything you wouldn’t deliver.’
But she and I were linked by an experience we had not sought and, I suspected, Alice would take longer to heal. I brushed back her hair. ‘Alice, will you promise not to do this again?’
Her colour brightened. ‘Who knows?’ she replied, with a touch of her old imperiousness. ‘I might have got a taste for it.’
Alice remained in contact. After she left hospital she was given a month’s leave, and because she felt low and desperate she rang me. Clearly she did not have much rapport with her own parents. But I had a brainwave and packed her off to Mazarine in Paris to help with installations.
They got on rather well. ‘At least,’ Mazarine reported back, ‘she is capable of great pain and passion.’ She added a (rare) compliment: ‘In that respect she is more French than English. But I shall take her shopping.’
Chapter Twenty-seven
I was kept busy lighting candles around the Madonna in St Benedicta’s: for Poppy and Richard, Sam and Jilly, Nathan, Ianthe, Alice. I also lit one for myself. It seemed appropriate.
In the office Kim piled on the work. On several occasions, I ended up going in early and leaving late. The buzz was that the
But these days I hurried less. There was no need. Today as I crossed the park, I enjoyed the birdsong, a tense exchange between a parent and child, the drone of an aircraft checking into its flightpath. My father had been a good listener. He had liked birds, the sound of water and the rustle of grass. The sounds that I was enjoying were city ones, but they also repaid attention. They were a line into life: ordinary and unremarkable.
Over by the path skirting the river, the buds on the chestnut were swelling nicely. Pink tulips bloomed under a maple and I bent down to examine the nearest. Greenfly swarmed over the concave inner petal fretworked with tiny green veins. That was good: Nature had not given up.
Swinging my book bag, I rounded the corner into Lakey Street and there was Hal. In the back of my mind, I had been expecting him so I was not surprised. It was absolutely in character that he was sprawled comfortably on the front doorstep, reading the evening paper. Beside him was a basket with a hinged lid.
‘Have you been waiting long?’
He looked up and sprang to his feet. ‘That’s great. I’d given you twenty more minutes, and then I was going to try again another day.’
A scuffle from the basket broke an embarrassed pause. ‘What have you got there?’
‘If you let me in, I’ll show you.’
In the hall, he put down the basket and opened it. ‘Come here. It’s a present.’
I knelt down on the cold tiles, looked inside and felt my heart squeeze: it was a tiny cat, as rippled and tawny as a jungle creature. I put out a finger, touched its head – and once again I was pacing the house, holding my shouting babies, while a cat drowsed on the shelf above the radiator.
‘Abandoned,’ Hal explained. Amanda, my ex-wife, found it in the road. But I’m afraid its leg has been injured at some point and healed badly, so it’s not very mobile.’
The cat had allowed me to touch it, but I sensed this was not a compliant spirit. Its yellow-green eyes had the bold stare of a vagrant used to living off its wits. This was an animal that would require time and guile to woo and tame.
I looked up at Hal. ‘I miss Parsley more than I can say.’
‘You can have it, if you want it.’ He hunkered down beside me. ‘Poor little guy.’
We carried it into the half-dismantled kitchen and tried to settle it. Its injury hampered its movements, but after several bouts of spitting and arching its back, it curled up on an old jumper of mine and went to sleep.
Hal put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Rose?’ He was asking permission. To push past the exchange of information to more weighty things? I did not know, and I did not know what I would ask him in return.
His hand tightened on my shoulder. ‘You look well.’
‘I am.’ I noted his expensive-looking trousers and jacket. ‘And you look prosperous.’
Actually,’ he said, ‘I’ve come to ask you something.’
There was a new jar of honey on the table. I picked it up and put into the cupboard. Suddenly I felt as awkward as a schoolgirl. ‘Why don’t you stay and have some supper? I could do pasta. Then you can ask me.’
‘I should take you out.’
I shut the cupboard door. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t mean it.’
‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘I would. But would you mind if I phoned Amanda? She was half expecting me. Don’t worry, she won’t mind. And her husband certainly won’t.’
While Hal was phoning, I whisked round the kitchen, making a carbonara sauce, boiling the pasta, laying the table, and I happened to glance up at the garden.
It was far less tidy, with an unfamiliar sprawling and rambling dimension, but the Marie Boisselot had assembled a whole dinner service of white plate-like blooms.
‘What are you thinking?’ Hal had come back into the room.
The lilac blossom was heavy and abandoned-looking, the
Hal peered outside, but he knew nothing of the white period. One day I might tell him. The notion lit a spark of interest, excitement, even. I made him sit down, gave him a glass of wine and hunted around in the half-packed-up kitchen for bowls.
‘Amanda’s pleased you’ll take the cat.’
I busied myself draining the pasta and mixing in the sauce. ‘How long were you married?’
Hal sat down at the table. ‘Nine years. Amanda’s a good, patient person, but even she couldn’t take the absences. Anyway, she found Edward and is very happy.’
‘Did you mind?’ I put a plate in front of him, and sat down.
‘Yes, I did. Very much.’ His eyes met mine. ‘I was a fool.’
I concentrated on forking up the pasta. I did not wish to put everything into pigeon-holes – good, bad, indifferent – but it was important to me that Hal minded about the failure of his marriage.
‘I seem to specialize in being a fool, Rose, don’t I?’
My fork assumed a life of its own and clattered back on to the plate. ‘Meaning?’
Pushing the plate aside, Hal placed his hands on the table. He cleared his throat. ‘Let’s get this over and done with. I haven’t ever been able to say sorry that you lost the baby and for the way I treated you. It’s something I have wanted to do. Now, I can.’
At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister…
I hesitated to discuss this subject. I could not bear for us to dissect it into the small and tame. ‘I should never have agreed to go with you, Hal, but I was sick with love, and I didn’t think. I didn’t know the dangers. I was ignorant.’
‘At least I should have looked after you better. I shouldn’t have left you in Quetzl, however hard you begged. I
