Falling (33 page)

‘Oh. Good. Give him my love. As soon as I’ve finished this treatment, I’ll have a weekend party.’ Then she could hear Anna’s other line ringing, and Anna saying she
must answer it.

It was an uncomfortable relief when she rang off. Daisy was not accustomed to withholding anything from Anna, but she knew she didn’t want to talk about Henry with her at all. Anna would
not understand. Anna might take – probably would take – the view that Henry was not good enough for her. And we all know what that means, she told herself grimly. It was snobbery barely
concealed by a kind of nannyish concern. She did not want to expose Henry to any of that. He was quite intelligent and sensitive enough to be acutely aware of any patronage from people who fancied
themselves better born. Look what he’d endured from the mother of the first girl he had been in love with. She certainly didn’t want to put herself into a position with Anna, Anthony,
etc., where even being defensive could appear as patronage.

What was the matter with her? Neither Anna nor Anthony were snobs – of course they weren’t. Anthony, particularly, was one of those people who was at home anywhere or nowhere,
depending upon the observer’s point of view. He described himself as ‘a colonial gay’, had left South Africa when he was eighteen and never gone back. She had met him in his
set-designing days when he had mounted her first television play and they had at once become friends, although his appearances in her life were widely spaced due to his roving nature: ‘My
autobiography will be called
Up Sticks’;
he had once, when reminding her of it, added gloomily that at the rate things were going (his life was regularly punctuated by emotional
crises) it could well end up as
Up the Styx.

Anyway, shortly after the play he had gone to Paris because of a new love, and there he had taken to photography at which he became very good. When she met him some years later, he greeted her
as though they had been meeting every day for weeks, with a kind of buoyant intimacy and delight that was infectious, and she felt as suddenly delighted to see him. He never seemed to have regular
work, and had long since given up the camera for painting; had got into an art school and actually stuck it for two years. He was larky and graceful and always seemed to have very expensive clothes
in spite of his earnings being spasmodic and dicey. ‘I incite generosity, darling,’ he had once remarked, when she had admired a particularly beautiful Versace jacket.

She would have to explain him a bit to Henry, if he did come. Would she have to explain Henry to him? Less likely, she thought, with affection. Anthony was very good at liking people, at
harping,
as he put it, on their finer points.

Anna’s call made her realize how thoroughly she had cut herself off from her London working world. It also made her wonder what was happening in Katya’s life. She had rung three
times now and left messages. The first time somebody she did not recognize had said that Katya wasn’t back yet. The second time one of the children had answered and said that Mummy had gone
to see a friend. The third time – in the evening – she had simply got an answering-machine. Now it occurred to her that Katya must have got at least one of the messages, and it was odd
that she had not responded. She dialled the number and got the machine again. She thought then of ringing Edwin, but she didn’t even know the name of his practice. She set about Directory
Enquiries – there could not be many medical practices in Dorchester – but when she finally got the right number she was told that Dr Moreland was visiting and would not be back until
two when he would be taking surgery. She left a message asking him to ring his mother-in-law any time after six.

All this was a far cry from what was happening to her here – now – with Henry. Quite soon he would be back from his boat and she did not know how to meet him, how they would be, what
they would talk about – ordinary things, as though nothing had happened between them? They had been naked and she had accepted his love without returning it – what could that mean to
him? What could she say to him in recompense that would also be true? How could she pretend that everything was as it had been before she had tried to drive her car and killed the poor
little cat? She was conscious of an unfamiliar simmering excitement, but it was encased in dread. She heard the gate click and looked wildly round for some immediate escape.

It took about an hour to pump the boat out, and while I was doing that there was plenty of time for thought. I was far from complaisant. It was one thing to get invited to her
bed, quite another to have the right to be there. If she agreed to marry me, I could afford to cut down my claims on Hazel’s imminent pension, and simply agree to take half the price of the
house she now occupied. This would facilitate divorce proceedings, but I did not want to do that without some surety where Daisy was concerned. I knew that this would not happen quickly. Apart from
her nervous disposition, she had two failed marriages behind her. I reflected, not for the first time, how my dislike of men was actually a mite unreasonable. If they were not such rotten,
adolescent, insensitive lovers, everything would be very much harder for me. The women I wanted would have standards that I would be expected to meet, instead of the pathetic fears from their
experiences that I could easily dispel.

How
she had responded – in those few hours! She had moved from fear and trembling to trembling of a very different kind. I could have taken her, but it was far better to make her
wait. It was better for me as well: after weeks, months, of imagining my possession, the actuality (not unnaturally) fell short. The body of a sixty-year-old woman, while it may be good for her
age, is hardly as seductive as it had once been in youth. Daisy’s long limbs, her pretty neck, still smooth and unblemished, her slender hands and feet, were all good lasting points, but her
breasts – small for my taste – were also marked by the veins and stripes that are the consequence of breastfeeding, and her nipples – small, also – had that rather desolate,
compacted appearance I associate with lack of attention. She has no waist to speak of. Her face is arresting, because it is so expressive of everything she feels, and her hair, all gossamer
luxuriance, is ravishing. She has a beautiful skin, utterly smooth and fine: stroking all parts of her body – excepting that most private part, which I have carefully avoided – is truly
a delightful pleasure. It will not be difficult to be in love with her; what I have to do is to become indispensable, and sex and affection are the keys to that. And trust most of all. She must
continue to trust me.

When I had done with the pumping, I lay on the bunk to consider practical matters. I must reinforce my foothold in the cottage and I must rid myself of the boat. This meant clearing things on
board, so that when I wrote to the owners, saying that I no longer intended occupation and was sorry that it had not sold, it was in a reasonable state and I had transferred my possessions, such as
they were, to the cottage. I could hardly put them in the bedroom that I had been occupying until last night. I knew, from various things she had said, that Daisy intended having people to stay,
and I had supposed that this would mean my return to the wretched boat. I decided to ask whether I might not put my books and papers – the latter carefully packed in carrier-bags that I would
tape closed – into her garage or the small workshop that was attached to it. I would produce these things unobtrusively, two bags at a time, and the plea would be that I wanted to protect
them from damp. It would be easier to clean the boat if I emptied it of clutter first.

I fell asleep at this point, having had so little sleep the previous night, and when I woke it was noon and very hot in the cabin in spite of the doors being open. I locked up and took to the
canoe. That, I reflected, would have to be returned soon because its owners would be down for the summer holidays.

I knew that she would be shy at meeting me, that indeed this first day of our affair would require constant tact and care, but such finesse was, after all, my forte, and I trudged back with a
sense of mounting excitement at the challenge, running the last few yards, as I wanted to look suitably hot and sweaty from my labours.

She was not in the kitchen, but the back door was open and from it I heard a car door slam. The thought that she might be running away gave me a momentary shock, which passed as quickly as it
came: the car keys still hung on their hook on the larder door. Then I saw her getting out of the car, standing by its door facing me. She
had
been attempting a runner. She saw me, and
started moving – very slowly – towards me.

‘Better not come too near me – I should think I stink of the bilges, et cetera. If it’s all right by you, I’ll have a quick shower – Daisy? What is it?’

‘I thought I’d left something in the car.’ She didn’t look at me. I could see that her shyness was agony for her. She made an attempt to meet my eye and then she said,
‘Actually, I suddenly wanted—’

‘To run away from me?’

‘I forgot the car keys.’

‘I’m very glad you did that. Forgot them, I mean.’ She had reached me now, and I stood aside to let her through the door. ‘I
know
you feel shy. I know it because I
feel like that too.’

This seemed to surprise her. ‘Do you?’

‘We’re both a bit out of practice. We haven’t got the confidence of the young. You know what they say about lovers’ conversation consisting largely of
reassurances?’

‘I thought that
was
the young.’

‘I think it’s true for any age. But don’t run away from me, darling – don’t. I beseech you not to do that.’

That made her smile. ‘Beseech.’

I knew that she felt more at ease and that I could safely leave her while I cleaned up.

We did go out. Sat in a pub garden and ate prawn salad and drank a bottle of wine, which she liked better than I did.

There were other people in the garden, so we did not talk about ourselves, which was good because I wanted to make her feel thoroughly at ease. I asked her if I might put a few parcels of my
papers in the garage since they got damp in the boat, and she said of course. She said she had been thinking of enlarging the cottage somewhat; building a second room at the back on the ground
floor and a second bathroom, and supposed she would have to get permission. ‘I don’t mean to do it now,’ she said. ‘Next winter, perhaps. When I’m back in
London.’

‘Is that your plan?’

‘I haven’t really got one. It’s possible. It depends a bit on work – on what turns up.’

‘Isn’t it good working here?’

‘For writing, yes. But I have to do other things as well. I have to earn my living.’

This baffled me. I had thought that with two places to live in and a very expensive car, not to mention sojourns in Los Angeles working on films, she must either have, or be making, a good deal
of money.

As I poured out the end of the wine, I said carelessly, ‘I’m just like the mob. I imagined that anyone doing films could have anything they wanted.’

‘Most writers are far from rich. It is simply the few bestselling ones that even people who hardly ever read books have heard of that make people think that.’

Someone came with the bill which she tried to pay but I would not let her.

After lunch we went for a walk, a footpath beside a large meadow that led to the river. Apart from a few fishermen on the opposite bank, we had the place to ourselves. We walked hand in hand
without speaking beside the river that was blue from the clear reflection of the sky, the air scented with cow parsley and the sun-warmed reeds by the riverbank. Then we came upon a cart-track that
had once had a gate to mark its entrance, now rotted to one post still standing and the rest of the timber embedded in the long grass. Ahead lay the deeply ridged track bordered on each side by
hedge. ‘The road less travelled,’ Daisy said.

‘Shall we travel it?’

‘Why not? Do you think it will make all the difference?’

‘I’m not with you. What do you mean?’

‘Robert Frost’s poem. About the two roads in a wood. I’ll find it when we go home.’

When we go home. There was something charmingly encouraging about the way she said that. I wondered whether to tell her so, but decided not to.

The track crossed a meadow, then ran beside a coppice and then declined into a small dell in the middle of which stood a most curious little building, about eight feet high. It had a gently
domed roof, and at its entrance was a pair of wooden doors flanked by an absurdly large portico. There was ground about the size of a tennis court railed off round it.

‘What is it for? It can’t be an ice-house, surely?’

‘No. It’s too much above ground.’

‘It looks rather like a dwarfs’ temple – a kind of miniature church.’

We tried the doors, but they were locked. We walked round it, but it contained no windows so we were none the wiser. But then we saw a stone set at a drunken attitude in the long grass. It was
just possible to see the inscription: ‘Bonzo. A faithful friend to his sad end. 1888-1901’.

It was a dogs’ or possibly pets’ cemetery, since some of the monuments were very small indeed, and we suspected that ‘dear pretty Polly’ was a parrot.

‘Do you think they all come from the same family?’

‘Most likely. This must all have been part of some large estate.’

‘It may still be. We’re probably trespassing.’

‘Don’t worry. From the look of it, nobody cares about it. Shall we have a rest?’

She agreed to this and we sat on the steps outside the doors as the portico afforded some shade. I reflected how odd it was that when one was walking with somebody, you had either to know them
very well indeed to talk, or they had to be a complete stranger. Anything in between was inhibiting. When I said this, she replied, ‘Is that why you wanted to sit down?’

‘No. I thought you looked a bit tired.’

She shook her head, and then said, ‘Yes, I was. I am.’