East Fortune (9 page)

‘Get that away from me!' she said.

‘I'm sorry,' the girl stammered. ‘The man said they don't always light very well.'

‘The man was wrong.'

‘I'm sorry. I didn't know.'

Krystyna asked Jack what was happening.

‘Tessa suffers from nerves.'

‘Only nerves?'

‘And she's scared of fire. Have you seen her arm?'

‘I did not ask.'

‘Don't.'

‘I was not going to do that. I have manners.'

‘And try not to smoke in front of her if you can avoid it.'

‘I am sorry.'

‘It's all right. I'll tell you later. It's just that she hates any kind of flame. But we don't talk about it. I'm sorry. I should have warned you.'

Now she had been told not to enquire any further, Krystyna wanted to know.

Perhaps this was what it would be like for her in the future. As soon as people knew that her boyfriend had committed suicide it would be all that they wanted to ask her about.

Perhaps her child would be a distraction. She imagined people either asking about the father or deliberately avoiding the subject.

Ian was pouring out more wine, calling people after the characters they had just played: the fair Olivia, good Cesario, more wine for Sir Toby.

He still had a piece of spinach stuck between his teeth but Krystyna did not tell him. He hoped that she had enjoyed the play.

‘I was impressed. They all obey you. You have state control.'

‘I suppose you know all about that.'

‘I was only eleven years old when the Berlin Wall came down.'

‘I was about forty when it went up. I suppose you've seen a lot of changes. Did you experience what it was like before?'

‘A little; after martial law my father was still a Communist.'

‘Really? I thought they all went into denial. I visited Prague in 1991 and they had all vanished: not a Communist in sight.'

‘My father was a big Party member under Gierek.'

‘Old school, then?'

‘I am sorry?'

‘A real Marxist?'

‘Absolutely. After
Solidarno
ś
ć
he would walk into shops and denounce soap.'

‘Soap?'

‘And toothpaste. All capitalist decadence. What is wrong with state soap? What is wrong with state toothpaste?'

‘They must have been rather surprised.'

‘It was embarrassing. “How many toothpastes do you need?” he said. Only when my mother showed him Western make-up did he understand that capitalism had won. It was revolution by Max Factor.'

‘What does he do?'

‘He was the boss of a steel works outside Kraków. Now he is a civil servant. He is very political.'

‘Are you?'

‘My country is a mess. That is why we are all coming here.'

‘I hear there's hardly a plumber left in Poland. They're all in Britain.'

‘We have Vietnamese. You have Poles. Maybe it will go on until all the poor countries are empty.'

Ian laughed.

‘I love a bit of optimism. How did you meet Jack?'

Krystyna still did not know how to answer.

‘It is a long story.'

‘We have time.'

‘I do not know him very well.'

‘Well, he can be a bit shy; but he's a good egg.'

‘Egg?'

‘Sorry. Person. Should have done better, of course, but it's hard to recover when your wife walks out.'

‘He does not talk about this.'

‘Too busy with his books, probably. He was never that good with other people. But then university lecturers seldom are, don't you find? They don't get out enough.'

‘Jack goes out, I think.'

‘Only when you make him. He's very shy.'

‘Do you think so?' Krystyna asked.

‘Well, he always was as a child. Perhaps he's different now. Parents lose touch with their children eventually, don't they?'

‘Not all the time. Your family seems very happy.'

‘We do our best.' Ian paused for a moment, and then stood up, as if he had only just remembered what he had to do next. ‘Thank you so much for being in the play. I can't tell you how much it means to us. It's so refreshing when new people come into our lives.'

‘You are very kind.'

‘No. You are the one being kind. I only hope you enjoyed it.'

‘I have never been to a play like this before.'

‘It all went so quickly, didn't it? But then everything moves so much faster when you're older. Are you sure you don't want any port?'

‘I'm fine.'

‘Good girl. But I'm sure the others will. I should go and see to it all…' Ian made a half-hearted gesture with his hands and walked away.

Krystyna thought about her own father. He was so much more irate, worrying always about money and the need to earn a living, never at ease. She had not meant to talk about her family. At least no one seemed to know about Sandy.

It was late but the air was still warm, heavy with the prospect of a storm. Krystyna could see Jacqueline Maclean sitting on the edge of a grass bank with her two daughters, staring up into the sky, pointing out the stars before bedtime.

‘It doesn't look like a plough at all, Mummy…'

‘It is. Let me draw it in the air for you. Look.'

Elizabeth rose from the far end of the table. She was talking to Tessa.

‘There's nothing sadder than the end of a meal, don'tyou think? And I do so hate the leftovers, the waste.'

‘Don't let it upset you,' Tessa said.

‘But if you've sown something from seed, watered it, nurtured it and watched it grow; if you harvested it, washed it, prepared it and served it, then it's very hurtful when people push it aside.'

Ian returned to the table to find Douglas pouring white wine into a glass that already contained the dregs of some red.

‘It might as well be meths.'

‘I do know the difference.'

‘That quaffing and drinking will undo you.'

‘I don't care.'

‘Is everything all right?'

‘Of course it is.'

Jack suggested that they went inside for their nightcap.

‘I do not think so,' Krystyna said. ‘I have had enough.'

‘Come and sit with us for a bit,' he said. ‘Wind down.'

The living room displayed paintings of the three sons and silhouette portraits of the grandchildren. There was a separate picture of Ian in all his regalia, and a full-length portrait of Elizabeth in a dark velvet ball gown and a string of pearls. It had been painted when she must have been at her most eligible, at the age of twenty or twenty-one, and it came from another age.
Looking at it, Krystyna realised that Angus had married a woman with the same profile as his mother.

She overheard Douglas saying to Jack, ‘How on earth did you meet her?'

Jack replied, ‘It's not what you think.'

‘What is it then?'

‘I don't know.'

‘But you're hoping to move things on a bit?'

‘It's none of your business.'

‘It is if you bring her here.'

‘Don't tell me you're jealous?'

‘Of course I'm not jealous.'

Angus sat at the piano and began to play a Chopin nocturne. The rest of the family was amused by the seriousness of his attempt, his head low over the keyboard. He was overemphasising the dynamics, his foot heavy on the pedal for sustained longueurs.

Krystyna rested her head on the sofa and tried not to fall asleep. The music reminded her of the lessons she had taken at school, trying to play scales and broken chords as quickly as possible, getting them out of the way so she could concentrate on her pieces. She had given up around the time of her first serious boyfriend: Radek. She asked herself what would have happened if she had stayed with him and what he was doing now. She certainly wouldn't have been sitting in a large country house on the outskirts of Edinburgh with people she hardly knew.

Jack came and stood beside her.

‘Would you like me to show you to your room?'

‘Jestem zm
czona.'

‘Sorry?'

‘I am tired.'

‘Let me help you up.'

‘No. I can do this.'

She rose from the sofa, walked slowly out into the hall and then rested her hand on the banister at the foot of the stairs. She wondered how many hands had worn the wood away from the handrail to such a smooth, unpolished finish.

Jack waited outside the door to her room, letting Krystyna open it for herself.

‘No one will disturb you.'

‘That is a pity,' she said dreamily, and then corrected herself. ‘That was a joke.'

‘I know.'

‘Thank you for asking me. You are kind.'

‘You're very welcome. They all love you.'

‘I do not think so.'

‘They do, believe me.'

Krystyna smiled, touched his shoulder and closed the door.

The room was filled with paintings of Italian hill towns, avenues of trees, a still life of lemons on a sky-blue plate; amateur efforts, Krystyna realised, executed on summer holidays long ago.

She sat on the high brass bed with its white counterpane of Indian cotton. It had been made up in the old-fashioned way with sheets and blankets rather than a duvet. Hospital corners. She realised that nothing in the house was new. The carpets and furniture, the fixtures and fittings had all come from previous generations.

Behind the rose-patterned curtains the window was open.

Krystyna lay back on the bed and tried to recall the events of the day, the journey out of Edinburgh, the play, and the little girl in the swimming pool. She tried to imagine which members of the family would call themselves happy, and if Ian had been satisfied with the performance. What would he be thinking now?

Outside the storm broke. Some days seemed endless, Krystyna thought, while others raced away.

She could still see Jack, in his jester's costume, singing:
But that's all one, our play is done
…

It was not love that she was feeling, she told herself, or even the beginnings of it. It was different, but it was a need, born from the sensation that so much remained unsaid between them. From now on, she thought, any time apart might seem a lessening, a missed chance, an occasion for regret.

She began to fall asleep, thinking that she had not known this feeling of safety for a long time. It was a house no one would ever want to leave. What would it be like just to stay here, she thought, in this home and this bed, and do nothing but attempt to recover and
have her child, absenting herself from her own life and becoming part of a different family altogether?

Krystyna waited until she heard enough people downstairs before coming down to breakfast.

‘Have whatever you want,' said Jack, when she walked into the kitchen. ‘It's all laid out. Mother's had it ready for hours.'

‘I wouldn't say hours.' Elizabeth was dressed in a navy-blue Sunday suit and had a hat waiting on the sideboard. ‘Did you sleep well, Krystyna?'

‘It was a very comfortable bed. Thank you.'

‘Have some toast.' Elizabeth picked up her hat and began to inspect it. ‘There's porridge too, of course.'

Krystyna smiled at the ‘of course', and poured out some coffee.

Elizabeth turned to her next chore.

‘I'm going to ask Douglas to take all the bottles to the recycling,' she announced. ‘Perhaps he'll get the message that way.'

Emma was not convinced.

‘With a hangover? He'll either take it as a challenge or feel guilty and drink more to forget.'

‘That doesn't sound very charitable.'

‘It wasn't meant to be.'

‘Is he still in bed?'

‘I suppose so. I told him we had to leave before lunch. I've got to meet someone about the next play I'm doing.'

‘On a Sunday?'

‘Right,
kirk.'
Ian was standing in the doorway. ‘Everybody ready? Have you had breakfast, Krystyna?'

‘I will just have coffee. And a cigarette. I will go outside for the cigarette.'

‘That doesn't seem very substantial.'

‘It is what I have always, Mr Henderson.'

‘Ian, if you don't mind. We're friends now.'

Jack knew that his father was not one for waiting.

‘It's all right,' he said. ‘We'll catch up.'

‘I don't suppose Douglas is anywhere to be seen?'

‘What do you think?' said Emma.

Jack checked with Krystyna.

‘Are you sure you're happy to come?'

‘I like church,' she said.

She followed the rest of the family down the drive and out into the road. She looked at the shafts of sunlight through the trees and remembered walking with her grandmother when she was a girl. ‘God's promises', she had called them.

The kirk was a stern and simple building decorated by the Ten Commandments and plaques commemorating the dead.