Secrets of the Heart

Her sadness encompassed the non-children, the silent husband, the threat to her home, the lack of a future and the battle they should be fighting together. As did his.

Cross, tired and a fish out of water, Bel came shakily down off the train on to the platform at Charlborough where Agnes was waiting, bearing schedules, budgets and the post. Her crossness intensified at the sight of Agnes in old trousers and hastily plaited hair. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she said. ‘When will you learn?’

Bel had brought her own coffee from London and hunched over a full mug, which Agnes kindly made. ‘This kitchen, Agnes, is a disgrace. Even you can see that.’

Agnes glanced up at the mesh freeways that belonged to the spiders. ‘So it’s no good me asking if you would like to run Five Star from here, then?’

‘You are joking?’

‘I am.’

The postbag was large and it was half an hour or so before Agnes slit open a packet from Julian Knox containing a photocopied chapter from Undercover During the Second World War, and an invitation to a reception for the coming Friday, plus a brief note asking if she would have dinner with him afterwards.

‘Ah,’ said Agnes, who had tried a couple of times to contact him at Portcullis but had been told by Angela that he was away.

‘Intelligence-gathering as a metaphor, do you suppose?’ Bel’s shrewdness had returned with the intake of caffeine.

‘For what?’

Bel was expert at interpreting Agnes’s expressions. ‘You’ve got this one bad,’ she said wearily. ‘It’s the crusade.’

Agnes did not contradict her.

The idea had been for Bel to look over the house. But even with the coffee boost, Bel did not seem good material. Agnes toned down the planned tour of the house, omitting the attics and, having assessed Bel’s fake snakeskin half-boots, the walk by the river. Yet if the shivers were a little overdone, Bel was reasonably complimentary about the rooms and the hall.

Agnes pointed out the depressions in the flagstones made by countless feet, the mark on the newel post where generations had put a hand to steady themselves, the burn in the wood on the bottom tread, made – family history had it – by the heated shoe of a horse fleeing with the news of defeat from a Civil War battle. She bent over and punched the tapestried seat of a stool by the hall window, and eddies of dust rose into the still, cold air. How do I keep this particular story intact? she asked herself, and thought of the dust-shrouded attics where once a maid had wept and hidden a plate.

Bel paused by the portrait of the other Agnes. ‘She looks tough. Who was she?’

Agnes explained that she had died in childbirth at the age of thirty-one, leaving a husband, nine children and a household.

Bel’s crossness returned. ‘She wasn’t a woman, she was an organ. No wonder she looks like death in life.’

Tenderly, Agnes touched the painted face. The other Agnes’s lips were firm, composed. The silk dress was trimmed with lace and the mirror, held in a white, ringed hand, reflected the furniture and paintings in the room. ‘She accepted it, or at least didn’t question it. Those were the terms of her time and she exchanged them for status.’

‘Gave her a prolapse more like.’

‘Probably.’ Agnes sank down on the bottom stair. ‘I try to imagine what she felt, especially during that last pregnancy. Frightened, perhaps, knowing the luck had probably run out.’

Bel shrugged. ‘I should think she was furious. Wouldn’t you have been? He did not love her enough to stop giving her children.’ She kicked one snakeskin boot against the other. ‘Excuse me, kind husband, you have failed to impregnate me for the nth time. To your work, sir. I am ready to receive the death thrust.’

‘But she had a family,’ Agnes pointed out, ‘which meant something. “Ladye. I shall no more delighte in any creature, but the Lord.” Her husband wrote that on the cover of her housekeeping book after she died, and he had carved on her tomb, “From one who loved her”.’

‘Thank the Lord,’ said Bel, reaching for her cigarettes, ‘that childbirth is now an option.’ She lit one and blew out a lazy, contemptuous curl of smoke.

‘Yes,’ said Agnes, after a moment. ‘Thank goodness.’

9

Friday.

For Kitty, a day of preparation, dedicated to the readying of the body, as Catholics once reserved it for fish. It had been her habit since the beginning, since the Harrys, the Robins, the Charleses – and Julian – from when her flesh had still been sweet and pliant, and the preparations had been more of a celebration than a necessity.

Now, change was creeping in, and Kitty was forced to consider new tactics against the rigidity tightening her skeleton, and the slackness sliding into her slender body. This enemy – age – had to be fought, with exercise, unguents and discreet visits to the plastic surgeon. Kitty knew she was inviting mockery, contempt, perhaps, from those who did not need such props (yet) and from those who considered one should take whatever one was given, brittle bones, sagging chins and all, but to take charge of her disintegration helped Kitty a great deal.

I was brought up in a world, she told herself, where we were taught that to make our bodies pleasing to men was our prime function. I have obeyed my lessons. I am not about to change for the sake of new political theories.

Anyway, any fool knows that it works better.

She scrutinized other women for clues. Did that one betray a new wrinkle, the suggestion of fat pooled around the waist? Or did she exhibit a fullness in the upper arm, and the tell-tale collapse of flesh between the nose and chin? If she found the signs, Kitty was secretly, shamefully, pleased that she was not alone. Yet, even then, into that companionable sense of fellow decay crept competition. She would prove better at preserving herself than they. Her arms would be slenderer, her chin less full, her thighs more taut.

Sometimes she imagined climbing inside the mind of the younger woman and tasting her freedom, her shamelessness, her ambition. Then Kitty would be permitted to view the horizon as these clever, earning, self- sufficient younger sisters saw it. Then again, sometimes she imagined it was possible to knock a way out of the pretty shell in which Julian kept her. But not for long: anxiety and fear would reclaim her. It was ridiculous to think she could earn her living in the conventional manner. Anyway, she loved Julian too much.

To get on with Friday.

The morning. Around her breakfast tray lay copies of the day’s newspapers, to be tidied out of sight. From them, Kitty extracted various opinions of the British economy and the latest play to hit London’s West End, which she planned to recycle, with subtle amendments, during dinner with Julian. These days, having an opinion was always useful.

Next, the bath and the process of creaming, patting and disguising. After she had applied her makeup, Kitty shrugged off her dressing-gown and pulled open a drawer in the cupboard. It was stacked with silk shirts, all tenderly folded and stowed. So expensive, so beautiful, so desirable. A second drawer revealed cashmere jumpers: grey, ecru and white. Kitty sorted through them, their texture emitting a luxurious message through her skin, and picked the one for the day.

She pushed her feet into a pair of new high-heeled crocodile shoes. Finally, she checked the financial pages of The Times.

Yes. The portfolio was in excellent shape. Each of her lovers had given her something, including the one who had left a large sum in his will. (Of course, the children had screamed blue murder.) To her surprise, Kitty discovered that she had an instinct for the stock market, a feel for the swell of loss and gain. Neither was she too greedy: Kitty knew when to cut her losses.

At the beginning, when Julian had been so besotted (but not, she reminded herself, enough to marry her), he