Indian Summer Page 7

  Kit looks affectionately at Archie. ‘The dear of him,’ she says, and then crouches to embrace the dogs, who come wagging enthusiastically to meet her. Kit is a great favourite. They lick her ears whilst she laughs helplessly, an arm around each of their necks. Camilla watches her, amused, understanding why Mungo is so fond of her: there is something so wonderfully uncomplicated about Kit – unlike Izzy. Poor mercurial, insecure Izzy.

  She helps Kit up, pushing the dogs away, handing her the glass. ‘Let’s have our drinks,’ she says, and leads the way out on to the veranda.

  Kit pauses to sip appreciatively. She’s falling under the familiar spell of being cherished. She’s spent her working life advising wealthy couples on the designs for their empty new penthouse flats, choosing a pretty lamp or a dining table, sourcing materials, selecting kitchens, and it is such heaven to allow other people to take charge occasionally. This was at the root of the temptation with Michael, of course. He was so responsible; so adult. She was able to imagine a future where anxieties and problems were shared, even taken on to his broad shoulders, so that she could be free of the responsibility. His size and rather shaggy head gave the impression of a large animal: a bear, perhaps, or a huge dog. She was always able to identify with Beauty’s attraction to the Beast and for some while she was blinded to Michael’s blinkered views and his absolute need to conform. After years of friendship with unconventional people Michael was a novelty. She thought he was reliable when he was merely intractable; wise when he was simply stubborn. Even Hal had remarked rather anxiously on Michael’s stolidity and self-regard, though the fact that he was an old naval oppo was a mark in his favour.

  ‘I thought you’d all approve,’ she said later to Mungo. ‘I could see my playing Camilla to his Archie.’

  ‘Michael isn’t a bit like Archie,’ Mungo answered at once. ‘Michael is a bigoted control freak who just happens to look like a rather attractive dog. And you aren’t Camilla. For God’s sake, sweetie, open your eyes!’

  How odd love is, thinks Kit. Like a virus attacking us when we’re low. Perhaps I thought it was my last chance for a relationship. Imagine being married to Michael now and getting Jake’s letter.

  This idea gives her a little jolt. How quickly all Michael’s apparent virtues would have crumbled to dust in the light of Jake’s personality. Kit tries to imagine them together and fails utterly.

  She considers telling Camilla about her dilemma, about Jake. Camilla will be fascinated, even charmed, by the romantic possibility but she will quickly become practical; cautious about any commitment. Just at the moment Kit doesn’t want it to be up for discussion in this way. Camilla would expect some kind of rational conversation, extracting facts, leading to a decision. She would ask about the letter, and exactly what it is that Jake is proposing, and it would be difficult to explain it without the context of the past. The letter, short but clear, unfolds in Kit’s mind.

  Kit, my dear, this is an almost impossible letter to write. I’ve thought about it for several months and I know now that any attempt at explanation or justification must mean that I am either disloyal to Madeleine or to you. We both know what happened and why. Let’s leave it at that.

  Madeleine died earlier this year from cancer. She had been ill for some time. Her death has made me value life even more deeply and now, as I begin to look forward again, I’m hoping that the future might include you. I’ve gathered from our yearly exchange of birthday cards that you are not married but there might be other complications about which I have no knowledge. Would it be possible to meet? To say that nothing has changed would be trite, cheap even. But at some very deep level the love we shared does seem unchanged. Is this possible? Help me out, Kit. I’m a banker not a poet, and if I go on I shall make a fool of myself. I need to see you; to see your expression when I say these things. I can’t begin to write how much this would mean to me.

  With my love,

  Jake

  Kit is filled with nostalgia for their shared past; she longs for him. She picks up her glass and has another sip to steady herself just as Archie appears beside her.

  ‘Come and see the moon,’ he says.

  It’s a magic world on the veranda: candlelight, moonlight, starlight. Black bats flit and dart amongst the eaves, pale moths drift and flutter round the guttering flames, an owl screeches down in the woods. Kit is suddenly filled with envy of Camilla, who has lived her life here amongst this tranquillity with Archie and her children and her garden; giving life and nurturing it. Beside this abundance her own life seems suddenly shallow. She thinks of Jake and Madeleine, and their four little girls, and wonders what her life with him might have been like if she hadn’t been so dilatory.

  ‘I want to be Camilla,’ Izzy said to her once. ‘She’s so … uncomplicated and she does so much. She’s so practical and confident. She wouldn’t have a panic attack about what to wear to a party or because she couldn’t decide what to buy for supper. I don’t think she really likes me much but she’d never show it.’

  Kit didn’t protest that of course Camilla liked her; she knew Izzy too well to make empty, automatic responses to these tiny cries of pain. Izzy hid the fear and despair so well that even those close to her would never have guessed at the depths to which she plunged.

  ‘And darling old Archie is such a poppet,’ Izzy added wistfully. ‘Imagine having an Archie.’

  ‘We’d both drive him mad in twenty-four hours,’ Kit answered. ‘He’s so sane and normal and responsible. We must just be grateful for Mungo.’

  ‘Oh, I am, I promise you,’ said Izzy fervently. ‘He saves my life over and over again. Well, I suppose it’s my life. Perhaps it’s someone else’s life. The trouble is I’ve played so many parts that I don’t know who I am any more. I’m not sure I ever did. I listen to myself talking and wonder if other people can tell that there’s nobody there really.’

  ‘Would you really swap your fame and success to live in a tiny hamlet, bringing up children …?’

  ‘No,’ Izzy said sadly. ‘Not as me. Not as Izzy. The responsibility would freak me out and I’d mess it all up. That’s why I want to be Camilla. Actually be her. That innate sense of her own worth. Those darling babies, and Archie like a rock at her side.’

  ‘And the dogs,’ said Kit, keeping it light. ‘Never mind the babies. I’ll have the dogs.’

  Archie is smiling at her, topping up her glass.

  ‘I’m hoping you might come out sailing with me tomorrow,’ he says. ‘No good asking these two but I thought that you and I could have a potter down the river. Take a picnic.’

  ‘I’d love it,’ Kit says quickly. ‘Yes, please. If that’s OK?’

  She glances at Camilla, at Mungo.

  Camilla shakes her head. ‘Too hot for me. Can’t cope with the dazzle on the water. And it’s no good looking at Mungo. You know he gets sick in the bath. It’ll be lovely for Archie to have some company.’

  ‘I’ll cook supper for us all,’ says Mungo. ‘And what were you saying about a new tenant at the cottage? I must go and introduce myself. And how’s James’s novel coming along? Do you see much of him? He seems a bit self-conscious. As if he thinks we’re all talking about him.’

  ‘But we are talking about him,’ points out Archie.

  ‘You know what I mean, though.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ agrees Camilla. ‘When I talk to him it’s as if he’s waiting to get back to the fact that he’s a writer. It’s odd how he can turn almost any subject back to it.’

  ‘Poor James,’ says Mungo. ‘I suppose writers are just as bad as we actors are. Insecure. Needing love and approval. It’s the creative spirit. Or perhaps we weren’t loved enough as children.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t start all that,’ cries Archie. ‘You were loved just as much as I was, and I don’t feel the need to make everyone love me.’

  ‘Ah, but you have wonderful Millie and your children …’

  ‘Just stop it,’ Camilla says, amus
ed by this familiar interchange. ‘Anyway, the question is whether we should give a little party and invite Emma and James. Would it work? I don’t see why not …’

  Kit sits down at the table, takes an olive, listening to them talk. She thinks about Jake, trying to imagine him here amongst these special friends and a mix of excitement and terror churns her gut. Camilla goes inside, murmuring about supper, and the brothers stand together talking. Kit watches them: tall, lean Archie and short, muscular Mungo. The sense of panic recedes and she breathes deeply. Bozzy and Sam edge closer, jostling for her hand on their smooth heads, nudging her knee. She leans forward so as to embrace them both, happy as she has always been in their undemanding company and uncritical affection.

  She thinks: if Jake had been a dog I’d have been fine – and gives a little spurt of laughter, buried hastily in Sammy’s warm neck.

  The tranquillity and the moonlight enfold her; for this space of time she can be peaceful.

  CHAPTER SIX

  JOE IS STILL awake. He lies in his narrow bed gazing at the moon swimming into sight at the corner of his dormer window. Daddy phoned earlier from Af, when Mummy was getting tea, and Joe told him all about the walk at Haytor and how he climbed on the rocks and then went and had a milkshake with Marcus.

  ‘Marcus?’ Daddy said, quite sharply. ‘What was he doing there?’ and Joe explained about how Marcus had been out for a walk, too, and how they were all going to the zoo together. And all the time Mummy was looking anxious, frowning and biting her lips as if she didn’t want him to tell Daddy about it. Then he’d given the telephone back to her and went into the sitting-room to turn the television on, though he could still hear Mummy explaining about Marcus. She talked very quickly and laughed a lot.

  ‘… I’ve no idea. I thought he was away, too. He said that he’s training on a Mountain Leader course at Lympstone to go out to California … Amazing, wasn’t it, that he should be up there on his day off … No, he said he’d just climbed up to the tor … Yes, just into the Dandelion Café for a coffee … Well, he mentioned the zoo and Joe got very excited about it and thought it would be nice if Marcus came too … Oh, don’t be silly, darling …’

  At this point she’d closed the kitchen door so that Joe couldn’t hear any more but when she gave him and Dora their tea she was very quiet, almost cross.

  ‘Doesn’t Daddy want us to go to the zoo with Marcus?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Anyway, it was you who asked him to come with us, not me.’

  ‘Of course Daddy doesn’t mind,’ she answered impatiently. ‘Why should he? He was just surprised, that’s all. He thought Marcus was in Norway.’

  ‘You said he was silly. Why was he silly?’

  She stared at him, frowning. ‘I said who was silly? Oh, I see what you mean. No, that was just a joke because Daddy was saying he wanted to come to the zoo, too, all the way from Af …’

  She went on talking, explaining, but he wasn’t listening. He was thinking of Daddy, far away, wanting to come to the zoo and it made him feel very sad.

  As he lies watching the moon climbing higher across his window, Joe still feels sad. Shadowy, black bars lie across the carpet and on his Thomas, the Tank Engine duvet cover. He wonders if Daddy is looking at the moon in Af, and he thinks he might cry. He slides out of bed, pulls the door wider open and goes out to stand on the tiny upper landing. He can hear the quacking noise of television voices but then he can hear Mummy’s voice, too. She is down in the hall and he can just see her moving in and out of sight, her hand is to her ear and her head is bent; she is speaking on her mobile phone. He can’t quite hear all her words as she paces to and fro though she seems to be protesting. ‘No,’ she says, ‘no, you mustn’t. It’s much too late,’ but her voice is gentle, rather like the special voice she uses when she talks to Daddy. He knows that everything is all right after all and his heart is soothed.

  Joe goes back into his bedroom and pushes the door nearly closed but so that he can still see the glow from the lamp on the lower landing. Anyway, the room is brimming with moonlight. He closes his book – Room on the Broom – scrambles into bed and reaches for the various soft toys that share his slumbers. The moon slips away out of sight but the dark blue square of sky is full of stars. Happier now, comforted, he watches their flickering, glimmering dance until he falls asleep.

  Kit climbs between the cool cotton sheets, sits for a moment debating whether to read her new William Boyd, and then slides down the bed with a sigh. Mopsa watches her, head cocked, waiting for her moment. As soon as Kit is settled she jumps up and curls beside Kit’s knees on the mound of duvet that has been pushed aside. It’s much too hot for the quilt. In fact it’s too hot to have Mopsa on the bed but Kit strokes her, murmuring loving words, and then switches out the bedside light.

  She lies on her side facing the open window. The pale, pretty curtains are drawn together to discourage moths but the moon’s brilliance floods around the edges. Kit’s thoughts are jumbled with different images: the candlelit table on the veranda covered with plates and glasses; half-empty bowls of food, tall bottles, half-full of wine; Bozzy, Sam and Mopsa sharing an unexpected mid-supper treat, ears flopping forward as they eagerly inspect their bowls; Archie and Mungo locked in animated discussion whilst Camilla gazes out across the garden, thinking about the pudding. Memories of Jake jostle with these images.

  ‘You have the locket,’ he is saying. ‘You were my first real love, Kit. Nothing’s changed that … I must go …’

  Is it possible that she can reabsorb him into her life? How would it work? Six months in London and six months in Paris? What would his daughters and their children think? Family is so important; they can make or break. And now Izzy has appeared among the images. They are sitting together at a table on a pavement outside a café in Totnes.

  ‘The thing is,’ Izzy is saying, ‘if you’re really lucky you get born into this little family unit. This is your place, where you belong; where you are safe. And then there’s the rest of the world, strange and unknown, but that doesn’t matter as long as you’ve got these people. Your people. If you lose them, you lose your bearings, your sense of being known. It’s unbelievably frightening and unbearably lonely. It’s odd, isn’t it, how we are defined by other people knowing us? It’s as if we don’t exist unless we are recognized by other people. When you lose your own special unit you are in real danger of losing yourself. Gradually, as you grow older, you make other connections, of course, but it’s never the same …’

  Kit remembers how hot the sun was on her arms and hands as she lifted her cup and watched Izzy’s face: so expressive, so beautiful, so sad. She remembers the smells of spices and coffee, the background buzz and bustle of the market across the road, the heart-jerking sound of the busker’s clarinet playing ‘I’ll Remember April’ …

  Now, Jake reappears. ‘Our love has to be put where it belongs … A memory … we have to live in the real world, Kit …’

  Kit turns over; away from the window, away from the moonlight. She reaches out to touch Mopsa’s rough coat. Deliberately she does what she always does when she can no longer bear to think: she recites poetry silently to herself. ‘Augustus was a chubby lad; Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had …’

  Mungo lies, propped about with pillows, reading the Duchess of Devonshire’s memoirs. He thinks of her as Debo. He has been asked to write his own memoirs – his agent tells him that he could get him a splendid deal with a top publisher – and so he broods about it from time to time. There are many names to conjure with – and many memories. He could cause a few scandals, there would be some very red faces – his own amongst them – but an expurgated watered-down version of his career doesn’t really appeal. Izzy, for instance: he would have to write about Izzy. Mungo shakes his head. How would it be possible to do that without betraying her? She is still well-loved, remembered with such pleasure. Towards the end of her career, her life, she decided to experiment in cabaret.

  ‘After all, darling,’ she said to him. ‘I
started as a song-and-dance man. Why shouldn’t I have a go?’

  She’d been a huge success. The public flocked to see her, admiring her warm, flexible voice, applauding her natural humour, which informed the comedy numbers, appreciating her faultless timing and genuine emotion. She went on tour; she recorded some favourites on an album that went immediately to the top of the popular music charts: Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’, ‘Send in the Clowns’, ‘Yesterday’. The public adored her; she had the knack of making them believe that they knew her, that she was one of them, whilst retaining a classy glamour that kept her just tantalizingly out of reach.

  ‘Tragic, isn’t it?’ she’d say sadly, reading fan mail, opening little presents. ‘What would they say if they knew the real me, Mungo? Anyway, who is the real me? I’m such a fraud.’

  ‘No,’ he’d say, putting an arm around her. ‘No, you’re not. It’s just that besides being complicated like the rest of us, you have this genius as well. Don’t beat yourself up all the time.’

  By now she was taking uppers and downers, sleeping tablets – and she was drinking heavily – but there were still flashes of the old Izzy: singing and dancing in the kitchen, laughing and gossiping across the table during a candlelit supper, appearing apologetically at his bedroom door. ‘I can’t sleep, Mungo. Such terrible nightmares, darling. May I come in with you? Just for the cuddle.’

  Mungo closes his book and puts it on the bedside table; takes off his reading specs, switches off the light. He misses Mopsa’s weight at his feet and suddenly imagines himself going into Kit’s room and climbing in with her and Mopsa. ‘Just for the cuddle.’