Two Loves (28 page)

‘Thank you.'

‘He's doing very well,' the nurse repeated with the same closed expression.

Rosamund went to stand by the window and opened it wide, looking out at the large sloping garden and further away the sprawl of Richmond and Sheen. Had she imagined the embarrassed edge to the nurse's words? ‘He's doing very well, but…'

‘I'm not expecting a miracle,' she told herself.

As she turned from the window, she caught sight of some drawings on the table. He's drawing again, she thought. That's wonderful. He'd told her he'd done no work for almost a year. And now he'd started drawing again. Just as she had.

She moved over to the table. The drawings were exquisite, that was her first reaction. The second was surprise, even shock; they were all nude studies of Marie. Not a titillating Venus, though, but a sad little Magdalene. Beautiful. She looked at them with awe.

*   *   *

‘Darling,' Daniel said a few minutes later. ‘How lovely to see you.' He came over and hugged her, holding her close for a moment or two.

‘Lovely to see
you.
You look marvellous, much younger. How do you feel?'

‘Pretty grim, to tell you the truth. It's awful not to be able to shut things off. To have to face everything again. All of it. Life.'

‘Is it so bad?'

‘It's hell. But I'm sticking it out now. And so grateful to you that I'm able to. She needs me so much, Rosie.'

Rosamund felt as though she was tapping about her with a white stick. ‘Marie?' she asked.

‘Edmund didn't even turn up for the funeral. He must have known about it. Everyone knew. Everyone was on the lookout for him.'

‘The funeral?' But even before she'd asked the question she knew the answer. ‘Theodore,' she said, her voice trembling.

She sat on a chair, putting her hands over her heart to steady it. She felt a pain spreading through her chest. Some weeks before she'd dreamed she was being shot by a firing squad; it seemed the same sensation of burning heat.

‘I wrote to you,' Daniel said. ‘I thought you might have come. I was hoping you'd come. There was only her and me and her mother.'

It was then she started to cry; huge painful sobs raking through her chest. ‘Theodore,' she said again, remembering too vividly his blue-veined eyelids, his careworn face, his little clawing hands.

‘I didn't get a letter. I haven't had any letter from you. I would have come, of course. Oh God. Oh poor, poor Marie. Oh God.'

‘You mustn't take it quite so badly, Rosamund. They discovered he had a congenital heart disease and it got worse very rapidly. He was in hospital for two days and then just stopped breathing. He had every care.'

Rosamund cried until she was weak from crying, her eyes red and swollen, her throat burning. ‘Were you with her?' she asked at last.

‘No, but she came here afterwards and they let her stay with me till the funeral. And she's got no one else, Rosamund, no one to look after her, so I'll have to be with her for a while. You understand, don't you?'

‘Of course.' Rosamund struggled to accept the implication of what he was telling her; the full implication.

‘And not just to be kind to her. But because I'm … because I'm … I'm very fond of her, Rosamund, feel right with her somehow, feel we belong together.'

‘Yes. Yes, I see. I understand … Where will you live?'

‘At Eversley Place until I can find something better. I'm going to start painting again. I think I'll be able to now.'

‘I'm sure you will.' Rosamund dragged air into her lungs like someone rescued from drowning. ‘I'm sure you will. You have enormous talent, Daniel.' Talking about work seemed strangely comforting. ‘I've been doing some figure-drawing myself, a new direction for me, and I thought mine were pretty good till I saw yours. Yours are superb. No, I'm not just being kind. If someone had shown me this and told me it was a Modigliani, I'd have been quite ready to believe it. It's so delicate, the line so precise, so true.'

‘That's the best I've done for a long time. I'd like you to have that one, Rosamund.'

‘I'd love it. Thank you. I'll treasure it. And now, I'm sure you know what I'm going to say. Please go on working, Daniel. Please try to face life now, however hard it is.'

‘I'll try. After all, you may not be around to rescue me a second time.'

They were silent for a moment or two, each aware of the other's pain.

‘You and Marie must visit me,' Rosamund said at last.

‘I'd like that. I'd like to see your work.'

‘I've got nothing worth showing you at the moment. All the same, I've restarted after a long sterile period, and that's something. But I suppose I only carry on because I've got no other talent, no other commitment. Oh, I'll probably manage to exhibit here and there, sell a few things and become, you know, a jobbing artist.'

‘That's all any of us can hope for.'

Rosamund turned on him angrily. ‘Don't patronise me. You and I are not in the same league, never have been, and you know it. You'll become an important artist, Daniel Hawkins, and I'll boast about having known you.'

‘In six months' time I may be a junkie again.'

‘No, you won't. You'll have Marie to think about now. A life to build.'

‘If I ever do make anything of my life, I'll owe it to you.'

‘What I did was for my own rotten ends. Because I wanted you.'

‘Did you? Why?'

Rosamund's chest heaved once more. ‘Why? Because of what you meant to me, of course.'

‘Fifteen years ago?'

She sniffed and blew her nose. ‘If you prefer it that way.'

‘Oh Rosamund, am I letting you down? Are you very disappointed about what's happened? Will you be unhappy?'

‘I don't know. I honestly don't know. I'm so terribly unhappy about Theodore, I can't feel much more than that at the moment. But I'll try to be happy about you because I care about you. I truly care.'

‘Please don't cry again.'

‘I'm trying not to.'

But after the hard bitter sobbing, the tears now slipping down her face and neck seemed soothing, almost a balm. ‘Make me a cup of tea,' she said at last.

‘Of course.'

They sat side by side at the little table, Rosamund still holding her drawing. ‘I'm wondering if Marie posted the letter,' Daniel said. ‘Perhaps she didn't want you at the funeral, worried that you'd come between us. She's very unsure of herself.'

‘I suppose she is. But in another way she's very … gallant. I liked her a lot, admired her a lot.'

‘She's twenty years younger than I am, but she looked after me for months. Even while Edmund was around, I seemed her first priority.'

‘“He's a super bloke and you must take him as you find him.” That's what she told me about you. I've thought of that so many times.'

‘Please don't cry.'

‘Joss couldn't say
cry
when he was little. He used to say
fry.
And when I'd say, “Don't cry,” he'd say, “I'm not frying,” and used to get angry because it always made me smile.'

‘There! It's almost made you smile again.'

Rosamund thought of the long terrible evening when Joss had disappeared. His safety had been the only thing she'd cared about. Joss was safe. She suddenly needed to see him again. To take him home. She got to her feet.

‘If I ever manage to sell some decent paintings, I'll repay you,' Daniel said. ‘I'll never forget how good you've been to me. It was a huge outlay.'

‘Money! It wasn't even mine, it was my late husband's. Take it as a gift from him. He'd have liked you to have it. When are you leaving this place?'

‘My six weeks aren't up till Saturday, but I've decided to go today. Two days early. I've seen various people and they think I've done well.'

‘You have.'

‘We'll see. I can't promise anything.'

They held each other tightly for another moment and then Rosamund left, walking down the gracious staircase, through the wide-open front door onto the carefully manicured lawns. Her face was red and blotchy, dry as leather in the hot sun.

*   *   *

On the way home in the train Joss wondered about becoming an actor like Paul rather than a poet like Anthony, wanted to know which was likely to be more lucrative.

‘Some actors make a great deal of money,' Rosamund said, ‘but most make next to nothing. And most poets have to take another job to make ends meet.'

‘Really? I think I may be a doctor then. Dr Clifford was really cool and seemed to be in charge and I like being in charge. Also, he has a dark green Mercedes and Paul has rather an old Renault Five. You're not listening to me, Mum, are you? Don't you like the idea of me being a doctor? Don't you like Dr Clifford? Why didn't we stay to see Dora? I didn't say goodbye to Dora before she went to work. Why did you decide to come back this afternoon? I thought we were going to see Ingrid again tomorrow. I was going to watch that video she brought me … Mum?'

‘Joss, I've got a headache, love.'

‘Is that why your eyes are funny? Is that why you're wearing sun-glasses?'

‘I had rather a disappointing morning,' Rosamund said half an hour later when they'd almost reached Admington station. ‘Daniel doesn't think he can come to stay with us after all. He has other plans, it seems.'

Joss was quiet for a minute or two. ‘We don't seem to be very lucky, do we?' he said then. ‘Alex too busy to come to see me, and now Daniel has other plans. Never mind, Mum, we're all right as we are, aren't we?'

*   *   *

‘Don't try to comfort me, Thomas. I feel really desolate. Oh, he was such a sad, sickly little baby. I even had this dream that he was dying. A dreadful nightmare that I'd stolen him away in a taxi and could see him dying in my arms. And even after that I neglected him. I've only written to Marie once since I've been back and I meant to send her at least a little money every week. I feel hideously guilty.'

‘Come on. I can understand it must be hell to have to accept a baby's death, but this is self-pity. You helped all you could when you were there, bought things for him, nursed him. You bought him a buggy, I remember.'

‘A really shabby, second-hand one. Oh, I should have kept in touch with her, gone to see her from time to time. Her health visitor said it would be a great help.'

‘Of course it would. Every poor young mother in her position could do with some help – a lot of help. But you had problems of your own and you can't expect to be able to help everyone. Oh, it's very easy to indulge in an orgy of recriminations. That's what I did: if only I'd done this, hadn't done that. But finally you'll have to accept, as I did, that the worst has happened and that all you can do is try to pick up the pieces. God, Rosamund, if Daniel is able to help Marie, even on a temporary basis, that's all due to you. He certainly wouldn't have been any help to her in the state he was in when you met him. And how much did it cost you to get him into that rehab place?'

‘I did that for
me
though, Thomas. I can't count that. I didn't know Marie was going to benefit from it, did I?'

‘Well, that's what happened.'

‘Yes, that's what happened,' Rosamund agreed, rather grimly.

Thomas flinched. ‘Of course I realise you must be very upset about Daniel, too. You told me how much he meant to you. How much he'd meant to you ever since college.'

‘When we met again, it all came back, all that violent adolescent love. But I don't know, lately it seemed more and more like a dream. All the same, something is missing now.'

‘Of course it is. I understand that.'

‘I do feel an ache in my heart. Or somewhere.'

They looked at each other sadly.

‘Try not to blame yourself,' Thomas continued. ‘You did everything you could. You didn't back out when you found he was on heroin. Most people would have. You helped and encouraged him and then managed to get him into a clinic. That was a great achievement . . and whatever you say, it must have cost you a packet.'

‘Let's just say that Joss and I won't be able to have a holiday in Tuscany this year. Or anywhere else.'

There was a brief pause.

‘You can come caravanning with us. We'd love to have you. And Joss's tent as well. So much better than ours.'

‘With Mary-Louise?'

‘And her boyfriend. Why not? Plenty of room. The four lads could sleep in the tent, Mary-Louise and Oliver could have the double bed in the bedroom and you and I could have the single beds in the living room.'

‘With Jim?'

‘With Jim. Yes. He's got to be somewhere, poor lamb.'

‘I don't think so, Thomas. To be quite honest, I can't think of anything much worse. Peeling potatoes for hours every day.'

‘Mary-Louise is going to do the cooking.'

‘I bet she is! No, it would be me doing the cooking and looking after Jim, you taking the boys to adventure playgrounds and water racing and rock climbing, while Mary-Louise and her boyfriend lie about in the sun being young and carefree.'

‘Apart from all that, mightn't it be rather nice? Sunsets and so on?'

‘I don't think so, Thomas, thank you.'

‘Think about it, love. It might be OK.'

She thought about it. There was a sudden dazzle in her eyes, tears or love; possibly a little of each. ‘Perhaps next year,' she said. ‘When Mary-Louise has left, there'll be more room in the caravan.'

She met his eyes. ‘And perhaps next year, Stephen and Martin will have begun to forgive me and I'll have begun to forgive myself.' Tears sprang to her eyes again and when Thomas came over to her and held her, she relaxed against him. ‘Perhaps next year,' she said softly.