Authors: Susan Howatch
As soon as I reached the reception area of the Healing Centre Francie led me into a very small, very private room and plied me with coffee while I destroyed numerous Kleenexes and reflected dimly, as I made fruitless attempts to check my tears, how much I hated myself for such a humiliating loss of control.
“… and I even tore up my diet-sheet!” I bawled, finally sinking into bathos. “It was so beautiful—I’d worked it all out, right down to the last calorie—I’ve been reading all these marvellous low-cal cookbooks because Lady Cynthia likes to weight-watch when she’s not entertaining—and now everything’s ruined because all my will-power’s gone and the only thing I can do is eat Black Forest gateau and rum raisin ice cream—”
“Hey, this sounds really upsetting.” Francie, to her eternal credit, remained dead serious, demonstrating that there were times when a stunted sense of humour could even be described as an asset. “I’m so sorry, Alice.”
I shed some more tears while Francie heroically maintained her sympathy, but having vented the worst of my misery I was at last able to pull myself together. “Okay,” I said. “I feel better after letting all that out. I’ll be all right now. Thanks for listening.”
“Hang on,” said Francie quickly as I hauled myself to my feet. “Now that you’re here, why don’t you have a quick word with Nick?”
“Oh no,” I said at once. “No, I wouldn’t dream of bothering him.”
“But it’s his job to bother when people are in situations as tough as yours, Alice! He wouldn’t grudge you the time no matter how busy he was. Let me just see if—”
“No, absolutely not!” I grabbed a handful of tissues for the journey home.
“Okay,” said Francie hastily, startled by my fierceness, “but won’t you at least keep in touch to let me know how you’re getting on?”
“Yes, of course. Thanks again, you’ve been wonderful,” I said, anxious to show her she wasn’t unappreciated, “but now I must go. There’s shopping to do—things to cook—and anyway I mustn’t take up any more of your time.”
Hurrying out of the little interview room I blundered down the corridor to the reception area—and there, helping himself to coffee from the machine, was Nicholas Darrow.
V
“Oh
, there you are!” he said nonchalantly. “I was hoping you’d turn up. Do you have a moment to tell me how you’re getting on with Mortimer?”
Well, I could hardly have said no, could I? It would have been so rude, and besides … all my will-power had evaporated. It was like opening the door of the freezer and seeing the tub of rum raisin ice cream; I knew that just a couple of spoonfuls were guaranteed to make me feel so much better.
Naturally there was no disguising my emotional state. I could picture my bloodshot eyes and blotched face, and it occurred to me, as I nodded my head to accept his invitation, that even a dead cod on a fishmonger’s slab would have looked more appealing.
Seconds later I was again sinking down in the chair which allowed his desk to hide half my body from him, and he was closing the door of his consulting-room.
“I had a reaction this morning from all the stress,” I said, feeling driven to explain my cod-like appearance, “but Francie’s been great. I’m fine now.”
He never queried this statement. He merely said: “I’m glad you felt you could turn to her for help. How’s the job?”
“Brilliant! I cooked dinner for twelve last night. It was great fun.”
“Is Mortimer still getting his food from Harrods?”
“They deliver every week.”
“If I were you, I’d slip him a supermarket dog-biscuit every now and then. Give the poor chap a break.”
I smiled, and when I finally dared to look at him I saw he was smiling too. He was wearing a very clean blue shirt, perfectly ironed—one of those modern clerical shirts where the collar is just a token strip of white plastic, barely visible—and he was also, I noticed with astonishment, wearing jeans. On all our previous meetings he had been so conventionally dressed that I had automatically classified him as a mainstream clergyman despite his unusual ministry, but now it occurred to me that he might be just as off-beat as Lewis Hall—not exactly a rebel and certainly not a rogue, but someone who was highly original, perhaps even a touch eccentric. But on the other hand, what did I know about clergymen? Perhaps nowadays hordes of them wore jeans whenever they weren’t conducting services. I could
well imagine Aunt declaring that the Church of England was going to the dogs by tolerating such informality, and tears filled my eyes again as I remembered her.
I took off my glasses and began to polish them. “I keep thinking of Aunt,” I said to Nicholas, now visible only as a blur, “but they’re good thoughts. It was so wonderful at the end. Thanks to you.” Putting the glasses on the desk I groped in my bag for a tissue. “I’m glad she was able to die in peace at last. I’m glad I’m relieved of the awful worry and strain of those last months. But I miss her. And I miss my nice little home in Dean Danvers Street and the market at Strutton Ground and Big Ben chiming the hours and Orlando’s grave in the garden—”
“Ah yes, the handsome cat.”
“He had such a beautiful grave … I planted a rose-bush …” The tissue was soggy now. As I clenched my fists I pictured it being condensed to pulp in my palm. “But I mustn’t be sentimental,” I said. “Aunt despised sentimentality. And I don’t want to be ungrateful when I’ve got so much to be thankful for—Lady Cynthia, a new home, a good job—oh, I do know, believe me, just how lucky I am! Aunt hated people who couldn’t count their blessings.”
“I feel I know exactly what your aunt thought about all kinds of things,” said Nicholas wryly, “but what do you yourself think, Alice? Now that you’re free to take charge of your life, what territories are you going to explore and what shape will your journey take?”
“I can’t explore anything until I’ve lost weight. But that’s okay, I’ll do that once I’m settled, I don’t need any help on that one, I’m fine.”
He nodded but said nothing and for a moment we were silent. I was surprised by how comforting the silence was. It was as if my mind was being stroked—but that reminded me of all the times I had stroked Orlando’s golden fur and I had no desire to start crying again. Chucking the sodden tissue in the wastepaper basket I rammed my glasses back on my nose. “I must go now,” I said, “but it was very nice of you to see me. Thanks.”
“Would you consider visiting St. Benet’s regularly for a while? It might be useful to have a weekly slot when you could update me on your new journey as it unfolds.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said, “but no.”
“I hope you’re not refusing because you feel you’d be a nuisance, taking up my time.”
“It’s more complicated than that.” I hesitated, aware that I was now skating on thin ice. Finally I said: “I don’t want to get involved
with the people here. I don’t want to get involved with anyone anywhere while I’m so fat because being fat means one’s always in an unequal position and no real relationship’s possible. Take Francie, for instance. She’s been wonderfully kind to me, but despite the fact that she’s always behaved exactly as a Christian should I know that deep down she thinks I’m just a sad case, someone to be pitied rather than liked. When I’m thin, of course, everything will be quite different and I’ll be able to meet Francie on equal terms, but right now … well, never mind, forget all that, it doesn’t matter.”
“I think it matters very much,” he said. “I think
you
matter, Alice. I’d be undervaluing you as a person if I tried to override a decision you’re fully entitled to take, but remember—the door’s always open if you want to return.”
That was the moment when I nearly lost control altogether and told him that if I returned I’d never rest until I could see him every day from Monday to Friday (although I did realise I’d have to cede him to Rosalind at weekends). A horrific monologue zipped through my mind. “Of course I know you’ll never love me, but that’s all right because I don’t expect love, I’m not worthy of such a thing, the people I hope will love me always go away—which means it’s less painful not to get involved—but even so I
would
like to keep seeing you, I would, because you’re the first man who’s ever treated me as a real person and I’m just so grateful—and yes, okay, I’ll admit it, I do love you, but it’s not a pathetic infatuation, I love you because I sense that at some deep level we connect, it’s as if the bedrock of our personalities is made of the same stuff, it’s as if—” I broke off this unspoken torrent of romantic nonsense when I suddenly realised Nicholas was speaking again.
“Let me just add,” he said, not looking at me as he rose to his feet, “that I do understand what you’re implying. You feel, don’t you, in some way difficult to put into words, that the kind of relationship I’m now offering wouldn’t make you feel at ease, and that therefore, if you came here as a client, the relationship would always contain an element that didn’t ring true. If you do feel that, then you’re right to refuse to see me in future. It’s all to do with honesty, isn’t it?”
We stood facing each other. His grey eyes were almost blue, reflecting the colour of his shirt. I looked away.
“There’d be no equal ground,” I heard my voice say. “Here I’m so vulnerable and you’re so powerful. There’d be illusions … difficulties … I couldn’t cope.”
“Fair enough. I accept that. But I’m sorry.”
I was too emotionally pulverised to reply. Escaping from his office at top speed I left the Healing Centre and fled back to my collection of ice-cream tubs in Belgravia.
VII
Ten
lunch-parties, three cocktail-parties and five dinner-parties later in the height of summer, when the English strawberries were glowing in the Food Hall at Harrods, the flowers were blooming in the lush gardens of Eaton Square and the Wimbledon tennis was fizzing (at intervals—the weather was dreadful) on television, Lady Cynthia summoned me to the private den she called her boudoir to discuss her future plans for hospitality.
By this time I was familiar with the pattern of Lady Cynthia’s life. She certainly kept herself busy; no one could have accused her of being one of the idle rich. She took an active part in the affairs of her local church. She was involved with more than one charity concerned with mental health. She sat on committees, organised fund-raising events and cultivated a network of people who were in a position to help her with her good causes. This meant her entertaining was primarily inspired not by a self-centred need to stave off boredom but by a desire to be of use to others less fortunate than herself. I admired this very much, especially as I now felt sure she must often be lonely. She spoke little of her relations except for her younger son, hundreds of miles away in Scotland, and although she had many friends there was no person who visited the house more frequently than anyone else; my assumption that a rich, still beautiful woman would have at least one doting admirer had proved to be quite mistaken.
“Distrusts men, she does,” said Mrs. Simcock darkly. “And after having an alcoholic for a husband, who can blame her?”
However during that summer, shortly before the Wimbledon tennis began to dominate the television, Lady Cynthia had attracted the attention of a VIP while attending a reception at the American Embassy, and when I arrived in her boudoir that morning with my notebook I found her in unusually buoyant spirits.
“I want to invite some people to a Sunday lunch,” she announced as I sat down. “A traditional Sunday lunch, the kind of lunch which will make an American go home to Boston and swear that English food, properly cooked, is divine.”
“Roast beef,” I said automatically. “Yorkshire pudding. Roast potatoes—” My mouth was already watering. I decided I had cooked too many French dishes lately and was keen for a respite. “Horseradish sauce, gravy, three kinds of mustard—”
“Exactly!”
“Peas, creamed carrots, greens—and new potatoes to contrast with the roast potatoes—”
“Perfect!”
I sighed at the thought of what fun I was going to have. “Anything to start, Lady Cynthia, or do you want to plunge straight into the roast?”
“Let me see. No soup, certainly. Perhaps something cool and light—”
“Asparagus with hollandaise sauce? Dressed Cornish crab? Smoked eel terrine?”
Lady Cynthia dithered. “Asparagus would be heavenly, but since we’re having so many vegetables with the main course … Dressed crab would be heavenly too, but everyone serves dressed crab nowadays so perhaps we should try to be more original … Did you say smoked
eel?”
“
British
eel! It’s delicious. You serve it with finely diced green capsicums—or blanched button mushrooms—or I could make a salad with—”
“Salad,” said Lady Cynthia, fastening on the word with relief. “Americans love salads.”
“Fine. And the pudding? Apple crumble, treacle tart—”
“I don’t think we want anything hot. And strawberries at this time of year are such a cliché—”
“Syllabub, gooseberry fool, junket, summer pudding—”
“Summer pudding! Yes—with a choice of custard or cream!” Lady Cynthia, who was so careful with her calories, was certainly succumbing to the urge to splurge. I wondered if this was all part of her new buoyant mood.
“The lunch will be for six,” she was saying with animation. “Five guests and me. The chief guest will be the American whom I want to convert to the glories of English cooking, and his name is Walter P. Woodbridge the Third. (You write ‘third’ as the Roman numeral three on the place-card.) He flew to Europe with President Reagan earlier this month and stayed on in England after the President had briefed Mrs. Thatcher about the Moscow summit. He’s now checking
up on NATO or something terribly vital, but it’s all secret so I don’t ask questions.”
“How interesting, but I’ve just had an awful thought: might he be on a diet? Americans so often are.”
“Walter doesn’t need to diet,” said Lady Cynthia happily. “He’s very slim and fit.” That was when I knew she was tempted to fall in love but trying to keep a cool head. I myself might have described Nicholas in exactly that tone of voice to a sympathetic third party.
I had a stimulating time planning the details of this feast, but on the Friday which preceded it the details changed when Lady Cynthia arrived back from the Wimbledon championships in a state of agitation. Rain had suspended play again and she hadn’t waited for the Becker-Lendl semi-final. As soon as she arrived home she hurried to join me in the kitchen where I was preparing her low-cal dinner (stuffed peppers, green salad, stewed apple with no sugar added).