The Birdcage Page 35

  ‘Love her?’ he repeats slowly, at last. ‘How the hell do I know if I love her? Love’s such an overused word, I’m not certain what it means any more. Look, I’ll grab a flight out—’

  ‘No,’ she cries sharply. ‘Don’t do that. I want time to think.’

  He talks on, quickly, persuasively, and she knows at once that he is hoping to exercise the same control, the same excuses, he’s used throughout their marriage.

  ‘No,’ she says desperately. ‘No, Sam, I’m not prepared to be a kind of ageing head wife, relegated to the background like some old dowager so that you can spend nearly all your time with your new family whilst I get the occasional weekend thrown to me like a bone to a dog,’ but when he talks about the expected baby and she hears the longing in his voice, she begins to lose hope. He will choose the younger woman who can give him a child: the one thing he has never had.

  As the weeks pass it becomes clear that his new mistress is using the unborn baby to make demands.

  ‘You can’t blame her,’ he says with a kind of pleading desperateness, ‘for wanting the child to have its father around.’

  ‘And you can’t blame me for wanting to have my husband around,’ shouts Lizzie. ‘But I suppose that doesn’t matter. I don’t get any say in this, do I? Because she can make a baby I can be chucked away as if our marriage means nothing. And don’t tell me that you love me. Like you said last time we spoke, you just don’t know what it means any more. You probably never did.’

  She slams down the receiver and sits trembling: I’ve lost him, she thinks. I’ve lost him this time.

  He doesn’t ring back and after a few days she writes to him saying that, as far as she is concerned, it’s over between them. It is a shock to find how quickly the rumours get around and it is a relief to be able to leave London, closing up the flat for a month, and returning to the Birdcage. Still no word comes from him and she imagines him with this new woman, pictures him holding the new-born child.

  The message from him on her mobile comes as a shock: ‘I shall be in the UK at the weekend. Looking forward to seeing you.’ Then the two messages from Jim: ‘Don’t forget that you’re supposed to be in Manchester on Monday.’ And the second: ‘Sam is trying to find you. He’s on his way to the Birdcage but I haven’t told him where you are. Give me a buzz.’

  Sitting by the roadside, drying her eyes, Lizzie took a very deep breath and pulled herself together. It was only to be expected that Sam would come back from the States to discuss their separation. Despite the forward leaps of her vivid imagination, picturing him as a proud father, it was only a few months since he’d broken the news of the pregnancy to her. The legalities regarding divorce must now be set in motion. She sat on for a few moments, thinking about Piers and Felix. She’d allowed them to believe that she was a widow; she’d accepted Tilda’s compassion and friendship under false pretences. How precious their welcome to Michaelgarth had been; how right it had seemed to be part of their family just as, years ago, Felix had been a necessary part of the little group at the Birdcage. How could she have explained to them that she’d been misleading them; trading on their sympathy and goodwill?

  Last night, sitting in the garth, watching them with their friends, she’d known that it would be impossible to explain. Being bereaved was such an excellent reason for the journey back to the past: it lent a glow of respectability – even necessity – to what might otherwise be regarded as a tasteless adventure. To appear amongst them, the daughter of the woman who had threatened that very family she now so much admired and envied, might be seen in a very different light without the dignity of bereavement to support it. She had put Felix at risk, threatened his relationship with Piers and, effectively, lied to Tilda.

  She thought of Felix, old and frail but with that same ability to give love and compassion; of Piers, to whom she’d felt such an odd attraction, familiar, easy, yet exciting.

  At least, she told herself, she’d done no harm. In fact, according to Felix, she’d actually restored their relationship, helping them to break down the barriers of guilt and resentment at last. So let it rest at that.

  Lizzie blew her nose, straightened her shoulders and started the engine. The roads were quite quiet and she drove the remainder of the journey uneventfully. The little square near the university was empty and she was lucky to find a parking space not far from the front door. She took her bag and one case, the rest could wait, let herself in and climbed the stairs. Once inside she dropped the case outside her bedroom door and stood listening: someone slammed a cupboard door and opened a drawer. She crossed the hall and went into the big room just as he came round the end of the piano, tall, wide-shouldered, dressed as always in black, carrying his coffee.

  ‘Hello, Sam,’ she said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  She’d forgotten the effect of his pile-driver presence, the physical force of his personality. In her present vulnerable state she wanted to put an arm across her face as if to ward off that black-hole magnetism that even now pulled and tugged at her.

  ‘I wondered if you might be here.’ She kept her eyes away from him in an attempt to resist any temptation. ‘I’m afraid this is just a quick turn around for me. I’ve got to be in Manchester this evening.’

  ‘So Jim said. He’s such an old watch-dog where you’re concerned, bless him. He was as non-committal as ever and I couldn’t think where you might be. I’ll make you some coffee.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve got some washing to do and I’ll need to pack.’

  ‘Been away?’ His voice was friendly, interested; when she didn’t answer, he added, ‘It’s good to be back in the old Birdcage again.’

  There might have been no cataclysmic telephone call, no new mistress, no baby: he was the same old Sam who was about to attempt the ultimate compartmentalization of his life. Surely there must be some change in him? She looked at him cautiously, curiously, and he smiled back at her, that treacherous smile that usually melted any defence she’d erected against his wily persuasiveness.

  ‘I felt that too. I was very glad to be home again.’ Lizzie was proud of the calmness of her voice; she decided not to dissemble. ‘But then it always was a place of refuge for me.’

  She had a feeling that she’d said something like this to him once before and she saw a tiny irritated frown crease his brow, rather as if there was something rather tasteless in referring to other similar occasions where he might have been at fault. He gave the coffee a swirl with a spoon and brought it out to her.

  ‘Look,’ he began – and she gave an involuntary little smile at this familiar opening to past confessions. Look, it couldn’t matter less . . . Look, she doesn’t mean a thing to me . . . Look, this has got nothing to do with what’s between you and me . . .

  ‘Look, I’ve been thinking,’ he went on, ‘that it needn’t make too much difference. We spend so much time apart as it is, don’t we? I shall still be coming back to the UK. It hasn’t changed how I feel about you, Lizzie. I don’t think anything could . . .’

  She heard him out, watching him with a terrible sadness, yet something was missing from his delivery: there seemed to be a faulty connection and his magnetism no longer produced such a strong, powerful beam. It flared intermittently, now blazing, now dying, and during each short power cut she was able to boost her own courage.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head at last. ‘No, Sam. I understand your plan for keeping me on the back burner as a kind of insurance in case this new affair is a terrible mistake, but I’ve told you before I have no interest in the position as head wife of a seraglio. Oh, I know,’ she held up her hand as he protested against this job description, ‘I know that you’re still fond of me and all that stuff but the answer is still no.’

  He stared into his mug, his massive shoulders drooping a little, and she felt a spasm of tenderness for him. His thick black hair was still wild and unruly, though streaked through with silver, and he looked as strong and tough as ever. There was so
mething so achingly familiar, so extremely desirable about him, as he sat hunched above his coffee.

  Two voices jostled in Lizzie’s head. ‘I suppose if I really loved him,’ said one miserably, ‘I’d give him anything he wanted.’ The other said brightly: ‘Shall I ask him if he’s realized that he’ll be a septuagenarian when his child starts university? Or how he might feel if this baby doesn’t go full term? If there is a baby. Stranger things have been known to happen and he’s a good catch for a young, aspiring actress.’

  With an effort of will she banished both voices, swallowed some coffee and went to fill the washing machine. She heard his chair creak back as he stood up and she braced herself for the next round.

  ‘We haven’t said any of the really important things,’ he said, leaning against the sink, watching as she hauled things from her case and pushed them into the machine.

  ‘Oh, I think we have.’ She straightened up, pushed the necessary buttons. ‘There is only one really important thing, isn’t there? Your new mistress is expecting your child. Nothing else really matters.’

  ‘Look . . .’ There was a kind of grieved impatience in his voice now, as if she were being wilfully uncooperative. His hands, fingers stretched and stiff, began to slice and square the air as if he could push and shape it into his own design. ‘I’ve already told you that you do matter. This need not necessarily be an either/or situation.’

  She managed to chuckle quite naturally – after all, she told herself grimly, I am an actress – and picked up the empty case.

  ‘Not only but also?’ she suggested. ‘Not only a faithful, accommodating old wife but also an exciting, desirable, new mistress with the must-have accessory baby? Don’t tell me she’s happy for you to remain married to me?’

  She watched embarrassment, frustration and a certain cunning follow in quick succession across his face and waited, still staring at him, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Well, no,’ he admitted. ‘Because of the baby, you see, but—’

  ‘No,’ she said firmly, trying not to show the pain. ‘I don’t do “buts” any more, Sam. And I don’t want to talk about it any further. Just go and get on with it and stop trying to have it all. You’ve got away with it for far too long.’

  She crossed the hall and went into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her, but stopped just inside, alert and unmoving. Presently she heard his footsteps running down the stairs and the front door close with a sharp click. She relaxed suddenly, her whole body sagging as tension flowed out of her only to be replaced with an overwhelming misery. After a moment, still angrily swiping the tears from her cheeks, she flung the suitcase onto the bed and began to pack.

  Piers took the stairs two at a time, glanced into the sitting-room but went straight on through to his father’s bedroom. He’d brought a small overnight case with him and now he began to pack it with pyjamas, a dressing-gown, some slippers. Pausing to look round the tidy room he wondered if there were some small item he could take back to the hospital; some personal possession to stand on the locker beside his father’s bed. There were several photographs standing on the chest of drawers along with his silver-backed hair brushes, a square leather box containing tiny trays for his cufflinks, a small transistor radio.

  Piers bent to look at the photographs more closely. The largest one was of Tilda and David at their wedding: Felix stood between the laughing couple, his top hat at a jaunty angle as he stared smilingly out at the camera. Tilda was holding Felix’s hand, laughing at some long-forgotten remark, but David was looking with tremendous affection at his grandfather, one arm along his shoulder. How handsome he looked in his uniform: how confident and proud and utterly indestructible: how impossible to believe that he wouldn’t come strolling in, his jacket slung over his shoulder, jingling the car keys in his pocket.

  Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye . . .

  Piers had a brief momentary vision of a butterfly soaring upwards into the sunny spaces of the hall, yellow wings shimmering in the dazzling light, and he experienced again that transient sensation of delight and peace. Oddly comforted, he picked up the photograph, tucked it into the bag, and paused to examine a small black-and-white snapshot in a worn leather frame. His younger self beamed back at him, straddling his brand-new, shiny bicycle, his own grandfather standing beside him with his pipe in his mouth and Monty at his feet. He remembered the proud moment; his mother on one knee so as to steady the old Brownie camera, squinting down, whilst his grandfather growled at Monty to sit still.

  He slanted it towards the light, running the ball of his thumb lightly across the faded print, remembering his mother and that sense of something dark inside her: some kind of banked-down anger that had eaten away at her peace and happiness just as relentlessly as the cancer which had destroyed her later. Even now, he was not quite certain what it was that she had required of him but he was sure that he had failed her.

  The trouble is that Daddy doesn’t care. If he really cared about you . . .

  He thought of his father lying in the hospital bed, the bruise livid on his pale brow; his hands thin and frail and motionless on the neatly turned-down sheet. Looking back, he realized that out of confusion and hurt he’d held him at a distance, influenced by those invidious words dropped like poison into his ear. By the time he was old enough and confident enough to make his own judgements the habit of a kind, polite formality had already been established between them and, even after his mother had died, the barrier remained.

  ‘You can’t die now,’ he’d wanted to say, holding one of those hands gently lest he should crush it in his anxiety. ‘Not now, just when we were getting it together.’

  He looked about the bedroom, wondering if there were anything else which his father might like to see when he opened his eyes, and then went through to the sitting-room.

  He thought: It’s a pity I can’t take the birdcage.

  Even as he rejected the idea, knowing that it was far too large and unwieldy for a hospital ward, his eye was caught by the odd shape of the card stuck between the bars. He crossed the room and took it down, seeing at once that it was an early version of the photograph of the postcard Lizzie had left for him that morning. Turning it over he read the message, frowning a little: why should his father have a postcard sent from Angel to Pidge nearly forty years before? Before his mind could furnish a satisfactory answer his attention was drawn to the address and he gave a cry of triumph. This was the message he’d been hoping for, whether from Lizzie herself or from Felix was unimportant; to Piers it seemed to have been sent direct from the gods.

  Tucking the postcard into his wallet, he collected his father’s shaving things from the bathroom, packed them into the case and hurried away.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  By the time he arrived back at Michaelgarth the sun was setting and Tilda was sitting in the garth, waiting for him. She went to fetch him a drink whilst Lion gambolled to and fro, ears flapping, tail wagging madly.

  ‘He’s going to be OK.’ Piers took a big mouthful of whisky and looked up at the swallows swooping above him, relaxing for the first time that day. ‘Apparently there is no reason why he shouldn’t make a good recovery, it was quite a minor stroke, but the blow on his head was rather a sharp one. He’ll be home before too long, all being well.’

  ‘He’ll come here, of course.’ Tilda rolled the ball for Lion and sat down beside Piers. ‘He won’t be able to manage in the flat, will he?’

  She looked away from the trestle tables and the barbecue, still standing witness to last night’s party. So much had happened since Saul had stood there, cooking sausages, laughing with their friends, and she was still shocked and oddly disorientated. She’d received a text message from him earlier which read: ‘Back safely, thanks for the weekend’ – and she was wondering how she should respond to it.

  ‘No, he won’t be going back to the flat.’ Piers set down the glass. ‘That will
be a difficult one for him, I’m afraid, but I hope he’ll see how impossible it would be. He’ll need looking after for a while.’

  ‘I was thinking about it,’ said Tilda. ‘I’ve had plenty of time today for thinking. I know that we’ve made the dining-room a place for me and Jake but we don’t use it all that often. It would make a good bedroom for Felix, until he can cope with the stairs again, and the cloakroom is just across the passage. And if you took those cupboards out of the scullery there would be room for a shower unit.’

  He smiled at her, grateful that she was not seeing Felix’s impending arrival as a nuisance.

  ‘That’s a very good idea. I’d been trying to work it through, trying to decide where he’d be happiest. Of course, if he recovers quickly, he’ll be able to use the stairs and I know that he’d prefer that. I don’t want him to feel that he’s a burden. I hope he’ll think that he can make his home here but we must wait and see.’ He gave a little chuckle. ‘Four generations of Hamiltons at Michaelgarth; it’s rather a nice thought. At the same time I don’t want you becoming a kind of nurse – after all, you’ve got Jake to look after – so I’ve decided to ask Jenny Coleman to come in on a regular basis, if you’re happy with that idea?’

  ‘I think that’s sensible. I’m very happy to muck in, you know I’ll do whatever I can, but I was thinking . . .’ She hesitated. ‘I’m wondering if the time’s come for me to get about a bit more.’

  He glanced at her, took another sip of whisky, and wrenched his mind away from his father’s needs.

  ‘Well, that sounds pretty good to me. How do you define “getting about” exactly?’

  She sat back in her chair, winding her hair up with her hands, twisting it into a rope and letting it fall again, seeking some kind of explanation that would not necessarily involve David. He saw her almost begin to speak, and then reject the words, and was seized with compassion for her.