Wicked Pleasures (106 page)

‘Nonsense,’ said Mary Rose firmly, ‘I know exactly where Pond Place is, Tommy has been telling me about it – well, I certainly know where the Meridiana is – it will take ten minutes at this time of night. It’s the least we can do, Max, after Tommy has been so extremely kind.’

‘Fine,’ said Max, and so it was that five minutes later they were bowling down through Soho and on to South Kensington and he was thinking how extremely unwise he had been after all to have taken Tommy up on his offer.

‘Oh how charming!’ said Mary Rose. ‘A mews house. I’ve never been inside one, you know, New York is not rich in mews, and they always look so impossibly small one can’t believe there’s room in there for people to live.’

‘Well of course, they were built for horses,’ said Tommy, ‘but they seem to convert well. Although it is extremely small. Extremely,’ he added with a meaningful look at Max.

‘Horses! Yes, of course. Do you know I had never quite realized that. Oh, it does look delightful, could I possibly see inside?’

She was flirting with Tommy again, ignoring Max, the full battery of her charms turned on him.

‘Aunt Mary Rose, you must be awfully tired,’ said Max. ‘Another day, perhaps.’

‘I am not tired,’ said Mary Rose, with a sudden return to her waspish self, ‘not in the least. You appear to think I am in my dotage, Max, or approaching it. Tommy, you and I are the same generation, are we not, and we are not in the least tired.’

‘Indeed not,’ said Tommy. ‘After an evening like this, I feel absolutely refreshed.’

Max kicked him. He did seem to be getting carried away.

He was never sure afterwards if Tommy invited Mary Rose in to punish him for the kick, or just to add some additional spice to his adventure; whatever the reason, he did it.

‘How very delightful,’ said Mary Rose, ‘just for a moment, then.’

And they were sitting in the tiny sitting room, under the stairs, drinking the excellent coffee that Tommy always made, Max putting on a great show of not being sure where everything was, with murder in his heart, when a taxi pulled up outside, there was a thunderous knocking at the door, and Georgina stood there, with George sleeping soundly in a Moses basket at her feet.

Georgina, 1987

She had been too shocked, too surprised to lie. It had been as simple as that. Had she been expecting to see Mary Rose it would have been different, but she had not, and neither had she expected to have to answer the question. The question that had haunted her ever since she had said goodbye to Kendrick at Baby’s funeral, nearly a year ago. Most people didn’t ask it, or not aloud, anyway, they waited politely, expressing interest in, admiration of the baby, hoping to be told; and when they were not, they gave up, moved on, and she could continue in her own safe silence.

But Mary Rose was not most people; and when she had said, ‘Well, Georgina, and who, might I ask, is the father of this child?’ she had answered (fearing that Mary Rose actually knew or certainly had suspected), ‘It’s Kendrick,’ and then all had been lost, hopelessly lost, and the carefully constructed edifice of the life she had been making for herself and George crumbled away as if it had almost never been.

If only, if only she hadn’t gone to the mews; if only she had gone to Eaton Place. But she had been afraid that Mary Rose might be there. If only she had stayed in Scotland another day. But George had had a cold, and seemed to be developing a cough, and Scotland was cold and damp, and she had been worried about him, and wanted to get back to Nanny more than she had wanted to avoid Mary Rose. If only she had caught an earlier train, and not missed her connection to Swindon. But her grandmother had insisted the later one was better, more reliable and had a proper refreshment car. And so it went on and on, if only, if only, but, but. And the end result had been that when she found herself confronted by George’s grandmother there had been no way out of it that she could see but to tell the truth.

‘Well,’ Mary Rose said, ‘I shall call Kendrick at once. I have no doubt he will want to come to England immediately. I fear it will be most distressing for him. Your behaviour is worse than immoral and high-handed. It is extremely cruel.’

Georgina supposed it was. She had not seen it in that way at the time, she had been too busy seeing herself as a victim; but looked at from Mary Rose’s, from Kendrick’s viewpoint, it was true. She had been cruel and arrogant: she had robbed him of his child. It was an awful, awful thing she had done. She lay awake until the dawn, listening to George snuffling and sneezing against her breast, and then she called Charlotte and told her what had happened and borrowed her car and drove home to Hartest to wait for Kendrick.

He rang her that afternoon; he sounded subdued and very detached. He was coming to England next day, he said; perhaps someone could meet him at
Heathrow. Georgina said someone would. She lacked the courage to go herself; in the event Mary Rose, who had moved down to Hartest, still in a state of violent rage, drove to the airport and fetched Kendrick. Georgina found that alarming: the thought of her pouring outrage and venom into his ear the entire journey.

She waited for him sitting on the front steps, holding George; it was a brilliant summer day. The sun had gilded the parkland, the lake was a sheet of glass-like blue; there was a shimmer of heat on the Great Drive. The house and all about it was wrapped in an intense, golden stillness; Georgina sat, savouring it, wishing she could shut the gates of Hartest, keep herself and George safe from the rest of the world.

When she saw the car, coming through the lodge gates, she stood up, oddly calm; she went into the house and up the stairs, and gave George to Nanny.

Then she went down again, and sat on the South Terrace. It was very hot; she could feel the sweat trickling down between her heavy breasts. The horses in the paddock were switching their tails and shaking their heads against the relentless flies; beyond them, the woods looked cool and dim and inviting. She was just wondering wildly if she could run away into them and hide, when she heard footsteps behind her in the dining room, and turning, she saw Kendrick framed in the doorway.

‘Hallo, Georgina,’ he said.

‘Hallo, Kendrick. How are you?’

‘Tired. Hot. Thank you. Where’s the baby?’ He made it very clear he did not wish to engage in small talk.

‘He’s – with Nanny. I thought it would be –’she smiled rather uncertainly at him –‘too corny if I had him in my arms. I can take you up, or you can go on your own, now or later if you’d rather.’

‘Suddenly I have a say in things,’ said Kendrick shortly. ‘Yeah, I’d like to see him. Now, if that’s allowed.’

‘Of course. Shall I come?’

He shrugged. ‘As you wish.’

He had put on some weight, she thought, he looked older, somehow, different. More self-assured, more of a man. Well, he was twenty-three. They were both twenty-three. Not children. Grown-ups. Parents.

He followed her up the stairs. He was silent. He looked very grim. Georgina realized suddenly that he was experiencing the fear of every parent, awaiting the first sight of a child. For Kendrick, George was about to be born.

They reached the nursery landing, and stood outside the door; Georgina’s heart was beating very hard. Nanny’s voice came out.

‘Come along, George, let Nanny wash your tummy.’

Georgina looked at Kendrick and saw his face change, and saw quite clearly in that moment what had happened, what small miracle had been worked. That sentence had brought George alive to him. He was not just a baby, a thing, something that had been kept from him, something he should have known about. He was a person, a real person, who had a tummy and enough willpower
to be doing something to stop Nanny washing it. Very slowly Georgina reached past him and pushed open the door, and they looked in.

Nanny was kneeling on the floor, on the battered old cork bathmat, bending over the bath; in the bath, with his back to them, was their son. It was a chubby slightly rounded little back that he had and the bottom on which he sat was very small, with two large dimples, one on each buttock. His hair was dark, and curled sweetly and damply on his small, tender neck; his head was bent over something in the water, something on which his whole being was focused. Nanny looked up and nodded at them, and then returned her attention to the baby; Kendrick moved into the room, and George heard him and turned round. He looked up at him, his small face intrigued at this new entry into his world; a thoughtful small face, wide-browed, snub-nosed, with large blue eyes and a neat, solemn little mouth. It was a yellow plastic duck he was trying to get hold of; Kendrick looked at it, and his expression softened, changed again. Georgina, watching him, felt her eyes fill with tears. She had been holding that duck, as she sat on the bath, talking to him, the night he had left her. The night George had been conceived.

The baby looked up at his father and studied him, and Kendrick smiled at him, nervously, awkwardly; George waited a moment, and then his face slipped, slowly and almost carefully, as if he had to concentrate on it, into a smile of its own, a toothless, delighted grin, a look of infinite merriment. And Kendrick stood there, and looked at the baby, and Georgina, seeing her child in a strange way for the first time, thought as she had done when he had been born, understood what people meant when they talked about their love for their children, how all-consuming it was, how protective, how powerful, making the careless thoughtful, the weak strong, the cowardly brave, the selfish selfless, and she could see that Kendrick felt it too.

Later he said, ‘I just don’t know how you could do it, Georgina. I just don’t know.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘well, there didn’t seem much choice. At the time.’

‘Oh really,’ he said, ‘no choice. No decision. Your baby, yours to do what you thought best with. Is that right?’

‘Well – yes. No. Oh, Kendrick, I don’t know. I tried to tell you. At – at the funeral. I – I couldn’t.’

‘And you never tried again. You never even tried. You decided to rob me of fatherhood, of the closest most crucial relationship I could ever have. All by yourself, you made that decision.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes I had to, really.’

‘And did your family have anything to say about it? Charlotte, Max, Angie, your father – I suppose you all decided I need have nothing to do with it, that it was a Caterham baby? It’s outrageous, Georgina. I can hardly believe it of you.’

‘Kendrick, it wasn’t like that. And anyway, they all said I should tell you. But you – well, at the funeral, you seemed not to want to have anything to do with me any more. I thought, if I told you, it would seem like emotional blackmail –’

‘Oh for God’s sake. Don’t you think it was more important than that? There’s a new creature in this world, has been for what, half a year, half mine, part of me, and I’ve been allowed to know nothing of him.’ He looked at her coldly, angrily. ‘If I ever wanted convincing that I should never marry you, you’ve done it for me now. I could never live with someone who could be so arrogant, so devious.’

‘Oh Kendrick,’ said Georgina, pain eating at her almost unbearably, ‘I can’t listen to this any more. I did my best, as I saw it. I’m sorry.’

‘My mother thinks we should get married,’ he said.

‘You don’t look as if you altogether agree with her.’

‘Georgina, I – I’m trying to be very honest here, so don’t start crying –’

‘I’ll try not to. I don’t cry nearly so much these days.’

‘Good. Look –’

‘Kendrick, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. You’ve hardly arrived. There’s plenty of time.’

‘I do. I do have to say things. Quite a lot of things. It’s important.’

‘Oh.’ Georgina felt sick and rather frightened. She had not expected any such discussion to take place; certainly not so soon. She was not prepared for it in any way; Kendrick had been returned to her life, a stranger, a sombre, distant stranger, and she was confused and disturbed by the changes as much as by his presence.

‘You see, I did love you. Very very much. And I did want to marry you. But – well, Georgina, whatever your reasons, you cut me off from you, and things have happened, and time has passed, and – well I don’t know that we could be together again now. Really I don’t. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know what to think,’ said Georgina quietly. ‘Is there – have you got – got someone else?’ She was surprised at the courage required to ask the question.

Kendrick didn’t look at her. There was a long silence. God, she thought, oh God, he has, he’s in love with someone else, he wants to marry her; and she was stunned, physically hurt by how much she minded.

‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t quite know how to answer that question.’

‘Kendrick,’ said Georgina, with a stab of irritation, a rush of spirit, ‘either you have or you haven’t. It’s not something you can be not sure about.’

‘Well, what I mean is, yes, I do have someone.’

‘Oh,’ she said, very quietly. ‘Oh, I see.’

‘Someone I’m very fond of. But – well, certainly not that I had thought of marrying. Or hadn’t got around to thinking of marrying.’

‘Oh,’ she said again.

‘This is a ridiculous conversation,’ he said, smiling at her suddenly. ‘We’re discussing marriage as if it was a contract, as if you were a client or something.’

‘Marriage is a contract,’ said Georgina slightly crossly.

‘Georgina, you’re just being awkward now,’ said Kendrick. ‘Yes of course it’s a contract, but you know that’s not what I meant. The point is that we certainly shouldn’t get married because we feel we should, or because my mother feels we should, or because we have a baby.’

‘No,’ said Georgina.

‘We have to talk a lot more,’ he said, ‘a lot. I need to get my head together. And I’d like to get to know my son a little more. Is he around this morning? Could we take him for a walk or something?’

‘Yes,’ said Georgina, jumping up, relieved that the difficult conversation was temporarily at least at an end. ‘Let’s. Nanny won’t like it, because he’s supposed to be in his pram now, but he’s not Nanny’s baby, is he?’