The tightrope walkers, p.39
The Tightrope Walkers, page 39
A glinting smile narrowed Amanda’s eyes and she bent her head briefly in acquiescence.
‘And Andrew?’
Once again Flixe was torn between her aching wish to protect him from immediate hurt and her determination not to shirk saying things that might save him from something worse.
‘I think it would be only fair to tell him that you’re having doubts. To string him along would be unkind. I think,’ she added in sudden doubt.
Amanda’s smile came again, making her beautiful once more.
‘I’ll think about it. What will you say to him if he asks you?’
‘That I saw you and you didn’t seem quite yourself.’
‘True enough. Thank you, Auntie Flixe. I wish … Oh, I wish that I was one of those people who don’t mind about things.’
Flixe got up and walked through the flowery grass to kiss the girl her son thought he loved.
‘Don’t wish that. It may be painful but it’s far, far better to hurt than to be numb. I’m sure of that at least. Come and see me or ring me up if you need me. I’ll be in Dorset for most of August. Here’s the number.’
She fished in her handbag for the notebook she always carried, copied the address and telephone number George had given her and handed it to Amanda, who looked down at it and scrumpled it into her fist.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her lips quivering again. Flixe kissed her once more and then left the garden.
Flixe waited through the next week for a change in Andrew, but it did not come. The only indication she had that her talk with Amanda had borne any fruit at all was a tiny letter in Julia’s handwriting:
Dearest Flixe,
Thank you. Not many mothers would have done it.
Love, Julia
By the time Flixe was ready to drive her three younger children down to Dorset, she was no better informed about Andrew’s state of mind. He helped her load the car with luggage and then took her in his arms.
‘Will you be all right?’ she asked, stroking his face and feeling it tauten under her fingers as he smiled.
‘Undomesticated though I am, I can open a tin of beans, Mama. Besides, George is dining me at his club tonight.’
‘How good of him!’ Flixe was genuinely surprised.
‘I like him, you know. Quite apart from his making you happy. He’s a great guy.’
‘Andrew, you … will come and see us, won’t you? I hate the thought of your sweltering in London with nothing much to do.’
‘I won’t get into mischief. It’s a relief to have nothing to fight for now that schools are over. I can catch up on sleep while I wait for Amanda’s recovery. The poor little thing needs some company while she recuperates and – and I like to sit with her.’
Flixe wanted to warn him, to protect him, but there was nothing she could do.
‘Now, drive carefully,’ he said, sounding just like his father. He bent down to look into the back seat of the car. ‘Take care of her, you lot.’
‘We will,’ called Sophie and Nicholas in chorus. Fiona looked cross. Seeing it, Andrew put his hand through the open window to hold her cheek for a moment.
‘I’ll miss you, Fee. Don’t run off with any brawny yokels before I get down there, will you?’
Her face lit suddenly with her rare smile and she rubbed her pathetically pock-marked cheek against his hand. Flixe watched them in the mirror and did not switch on the engine until their moment was over.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was a terrible journey: a long, hot crawl out of London and westwards down the A30, stopping twice to let Nicholas be sick and then later so that Flixe could deal with the overheating engine; waiting at the bottlenecks at the end of each short stretch of dual carriageway and held up by roadworks just after they had first managed to get up a bit of speed. Sophie started to torment her elder sister about her spots and then wept bitterly when Fiona rounded on her in cutting fury. Things improved only when they turned off the main road outside Bridport four and half hours after leaving London.
Flixe stopped in a minute lay-by at the edge of the one-track road, which seemed to have been tunnelled out of one enormous hedge, to check the instructions George had written out for her. She handed the paper to Fiona, saying: ‘Will you look out for the turn?’
‘Yes.’
Flixe edged the car back on to the tiny road and, driving at a cautious ten miles an hour, crept up the steep incline, desperately hoping she was not about to meet a tractor. She did a few minutes later, just as Nicholas shrieked that he had seen the sea, and had to back, lurching from side to side, until she reached the same lay-by. The driver, a swarthy, sweating young man with a face as red as the spotted handkerchief he had tied round his neck, raised a hand and grinned at them. Fiona privately thought that the smile was for her in acknowledgement of the sympathy she had directed at him for putting up so patiently with her mother’s erratic reversing.
He had, she noticed, very white teeth and his eyes flashed in the sun.
They set off again and succeeded in reaching the sharp turn into the even narrower road that appeared to lead to George’s farmhouse. There was no metalled surface to the road and the car bumped and slithered over the boulders, but Flixe managed to ease it up the hill until they saw the house, tucked into the hill that must protect it from the sea gales in winter. Built around three sides of the original farmyard, the house faced the sloping valley and looked as solid as the day it had been built four hundred years earlier. Its yellowish stone glowed in the evening light, as though it had absorbed the sun itself all day.
Nicholas got out of the car to open the gate that barred their way and waited as Flixe parked in what must once have been a cowshed. She switched off the engine with a sigh and arched her back to ease her cramped muscles, before getting out the car and pulling her skirt away from the damp backs of her legs.
‘Let’s leave the luggage until we’ve explored a bit,’ she said, rocking her head from side to side against the stiffness of her neck. ‘Doctor Mayford said there’d be someone to meet us with the key.’
‘There he is,’ called Nicholas, dancing through another gate and pointing at the figure of a man who was standing waiting for them.
Flixe followed her youngest child into the old farmyard and saw that it had been transformed into a garden. Perfectly espaliered fruit trees were pinned against the old walls of the house, catching the sun that poured into the courtyard. The ground had been cut into four square beds, each divided from the rest by immaculately mown grass paths, edged with herbs. In the centre of each bed stood a short standard apple tree and around it grew flowers and vegetables in glorious and muddled profusion. The mixture of discipline and generosity seemed so characteristic of George that it was a while before she remembered the man who was waiting for them.
‘I am so sorry,’ she said, turning towards him. ‘I was quite lost in all this. It’s lovely.’
‘I’m glad you like it,’ he said. ‘George designed it, I put it into practice for him and my chaps keep it tidy while he’s away. How was the journey, Mrs Suvarov?’
‘Awful,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But what is even more awful is that he didn’t tell me who would be here.’
‘Mark Mayford. I’m a cousin of his. I farm across the valley. There are lots of us around here, I’m afraid. You’ll probably be swamped by Mayfords.’ He shook her hand. ‘Would you like to come in and see the house first, or shall we fetch your kit?’
‘I think we’d like to see it, wouldn’t we? These are my daughters, Fiona and Sophie, and this is Nicholas. This is Mr Mayford.’
‘Hello, kids. You lead the way.’
Despite his orders, they hung back, embarrassed and at a loss. Laughing, he ruffled Nicholas’s hair and grinned at the girls. Once he had gone through the front door they all followed him into a low-ceilinged, rather dark hall. Its stone floor made it instantly cool and Flixe sighed in relief as her eyes adjusted to its dimness. She had a vague impression of old oak chests and a wide rush mat before Mark led the way upstairs.
‘All the beds are made up,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘because George thought you’d like a choice of rooms.’
‘Me first,’ shrieked Sophie, hurtling past him before her siblings could get at the best room. They fought it out between them, leaving Flixe and Mark to walk around the rest of the house in relative peace. She said very little as she took in all the differences between its old, shabby charm and the luxury of George’s Harley Street flat. She liked the wide windowsills and the faded chintz curtains, the deep fireplaces and the pale pinks and yellows of the colour-washed walls, but she saw with regret that many of the beams had signs of worm and most of the floors were warped and sloping.
Mark Mayford showed her how the often temperamental hot-water system worked and what she had to do if the electric pump stopped producing water from the well. He told her where she would find telephone numbers for the local doctor and for his house, assured her that he would come to her assistance whenever she needed him and that she was to look on him as George’s deputy.
‘You are kind,’ she said with a smile, wondering how much he knew about her and George. ‘But I expect we’ll be all right.’
‘I’m sure you will. Now, I’ll give you a hand with the bags.’
When everything had been unloaded from the back of the car and the roof rack, Flixe insisted that he stay to tea with them and unpacked a huge fruit cake she had cooked a week earlier.
‘It ought really to have a week or two longer to mature, but it seems quite squishy,’ she said.
‘It looks wonderful. My wife loathes cooking and so we make do with stuff from the WI stall at the local market. They’re pretty good as a rule, but this is a treat. By the way, she hopes you’ll come over to dinner and wondered if tomorrow would suit – after you’ve had a chance to settle in.’
‘How kind,’ said Flixe, looking doubtfully at the children.
‘Them too. If you were to come about six, they could meet mine and see the ponies and decide whether they want to have a go.’
Flixe gave the Mayford family a silent blessing and tried not to think what it would be like to sink into their generosity and care for the rest of her life.
Nicholas woke her at exactly seven o’clock the next morning, quietly closing the old-fashioned latch on her bedroom door and sidling to the edge of her bed. Without a word, she lifted up the bedclothes and he slid under them, shivering.
‘Golly, you’ve got cold feet,’ said Flixe. ‘What have you been doing?’
‘Exploring,’ he said, hugging her and rubbing his toes against her warm legs. ‘Can we go to the beach today?’
‘Good idea; but it’s a bit early yet.’
‘Sophie’s up, but Fee’s sleeping like a pig.’
‘Nicky!’
‘Well, she is. Like a fat, snoring, spotty pig.’
Flixe released his arms from her waist and turned him on his back, tickling him as she used to do when he was an infant.
‘A fat, snoring pig,’ he repeated through gritted teeth, determined not to squeal. In the end he had to succumb.
‘There. Like a scrawny, squealing pig,’ said his mother with some satisfaction. ‘You’re a dreadful boy and you must remember that. Fiona is particularly sensitive at the moment.’
‘When isn’t she? Girls! I mean to say.’
‘And Sophie?’ asked Flixe, laughing. ‘What’s she up to?’
‘She’s found a footpath and she’s seeing where it goes.’ That sounded all right and Flixe lay back, smiling at the bright yellow light that reached through the old curtains and promised hours of blissful heat. ‘She’s wearing her nightie and her gumboots,’ added Nicholas, deliberately watching for his mother’s reaction.
Flixe groaned and covered her eyes. ‘You children.’
‘So will you get up now? You are awake.’ He was twisting her earlobes between finger and thumb.
‘It’s so early, Nicky,’ said Flixe, pushing his hands away.
‘Too bad. Come on, Mum. It’s a waste of the summer to lie in bed.’
‘Snoring like a pig. I know. All right. Shoo while I get dressed. Don’t forget to clean your teeth and if you’re ready before I am you can start laying the breakfast table.’
Ignoring his look of outraged dignity, Flixe hustled him out, washed in the basin in the corner of the room and dressed in a cotton frock so old and well washed that the material felt soft and silky. She pushed her feet into a pair of sloppy, rope-soled canvas shoes and went down to the kitchen, tucking her unset hair behind her ears.
Sophie was already there, still dressed only in a torn nightdress and muddy wellington boots, pouring milk into a flat cereal bowl on the floor.
‘What’s that for?’
‘The cat. It’s called Murgatroyd. It belongs here.’
‘How on earth do you know?’
‘Mr Mayford told me when he brought us the milk. He said he didn’t expect any of us to be up yet and he was just going to leave it on the step. It came in a churn.’ She pointed to a small aluminium can that would have held about four pints. ‘He says that one of the men will bring some every morning. I like him.’
‘I liked him, too,’ said Flixe. ‘Did he say anything about your clothes?’
‘No.’ Sophie looked surprised and Flixe could only feel thankful that she still had some of her childhood lack of inhibition. It could not last much longer and then she would join Fiona in the almost permanent torment of embarrassment and anger about her body and its infuriating manifestations of growing up.
‘Oh, yes, and he says we have to riddle the Aga.’
‘He told me that last night. I’ll do it after breakfast.’
‘And then we’ll go to the sea,’ said Nicky from the doorway. ‘Sophie says the footpath has a sign there, so we can walk.’
‘Yes, Nicky.’ Flixe was thankful that she would not have to take the big car up those minute lanes. ‘Now, who wants bacon?’
By the time George Mayford was expected a week later, they had become completely at home. They knew the walk to the sea with its stiff pull up the hill amid the mingled smells of cow dung and blackberry leaves, hot mown grass and the sea itself. After the first few terrifying bathes, they had learned about the heavy undertow and the excitement of the tumbling waves it produced. The mysteries of the Aga and the well were mysteries no longer; the horses and the farm dogs were still frightening to the London-based Suvarovs, but the Mayford children had become allies.
Flixe herself had made friends with the house more than with any of George’s relations, kind though they had all been. It seemed to offer her clues to a part of him that she had sensed but never confronted and she had spent much of the week longing to see him again to test her ideas against the reality. Lying in the baking sun on the beach or pitting herself against the freezing waves, she let the children run wild and herself ignore all the constraints of real life.
She spent the Friday of his expected arrival cooking, which her children thought, and said, was idiotic when she could have bought all the raised pies, cakes and loaves at the WI stall in the market. Having pointed out that it was a small return for the loan of the house, they sobered slightly and even agreed to tidy up some of the rooms they had turned into chaos.
Fiona shyly produced three glass vases she had found in an unused scullery and asked whether she might pick some of the flowers in the courtyard garden. Flixe kissed the top of her head.
‘Good idea, darling.’
‘Is he like Mr Mayford?’
Flixe put her head on one side.
‘Yes, I think he is, quite. He’s a little bit older and he’s a doctor, as you know. But they look quite alike.’
‘Does he make jokes like Mr Mayford?’
‘I’m not sure. I expect so.’
‘Oh. D’you know him well, Mum?’
‘Quite well. I saw him at a lot of the dances I arranged this summer because his daughter was a deb.’
‘And you went to Rome with him, didn’t you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Oh. Are you in love with him?’
Flixe wiped her hot face on her apron and sat down at the kitchen table. Fiona stood opposite her, fiddling with the vases and looking miserable.
‘I’m not absolutely sure yet. But I am very fond of him. Why do you ask?’
Fiona fiddled some more.
‘I heard Mrs Mayford telling Mr Mayford that she thought you’d be perfect for him.’
Flixe laughed.
‘And that we’d stop him getting too arrogant with our antics.’
‘Oh, darling.’ Flixe walked round the table to hug her daughter. ‘That shows how much she must like you.’
Fiona pulled away.
‘Your biscuits are burning,’ she said coolly and disappeared with her vases.
Flixe fished the tray of blackened biscuits out of the top oven of the Aga and shot them straight into the rubbish bin.
‘By the way.’ Fiona had put her head round the top half of the stable door that led from the kitchen to the garden.
‘Yes?’
‘She’s asked us three over to supper tonight so you can have him to yourself. They’ll bring us back.’
Flixe did not know whether to bless Anne Mayford or curse her for alerting Fiona to the possibilities of her mother’s friendship, but when George arrived, irritable and tired after a wretched journey, she was glad the children were out of the way. She sat him down in the old rocking chair in his kitchen with a drink and The Times while she cooked a stew offish in cream and saffron with rice, trying to be as quiet as possible.
He had recovered his temper and finished the drink long before she had reached the last tricky stage of beating the cream into the hot saffron-flavoured fish stock.
‘Hello, darling,’ he said. Flixe turned, the whisk in her hand, to smile at him.
‘Hello. Better?’
‘Much. Where are your brood?’
‘Your cousin Anne’s got them over at Manor Farm to give us a chance to be on our own.’
