Facing the Light (26 page)

‘Oh, yes,' she said, and then moved away from this untruth at once and on to something which made her feel more honest. ‘I've seen the way he looks at you.' I'm such
a cow, she thought. I'm not telling her
how
Efe often looks at her, as though she's a complete fool. Fiona seemed visibly to brighten at these words.

‘I do try, you know. To do what he wants me to do. I try all the time.'

‘Maybe you shouldn't,' Beth said, taking Douggie on to her lap and cuddling him as she spoke. ‘Maybe you should assert yourself more.'

Fiona's eyes widened. ‘I daren't,' she said. ‘He gets so angry if anyone disagrees with him. Look.'

She pushed her sleeve back, up above her elbow, and held out her arm for Beth to examine. There were bruises on the white skin, blue marks of fingers digging into flesh. Efe's fingers on his wife's skin. Efe, being angry and showing it. An Efe she didn't want to know about. She was shocked and revolted, but amazingly not completely surprised at this evidence of brutality. Surely she ought to have been astonished?

She swallowed and said to Fiona, ‘You should tell someone. He shouldn't be allowed to do this to you.'

‘He lost his temper. He apologized straight away, really. He was terribly, terribly sorry. Really. I'm only showing you because you suggested I should stand up to him. It's just easier to agree, that's all.'

Beth stroked Douggie's hair. ‘Has he ever hurt you before? Tell me, Fiona. I won't tell a soul, promise.'

Fiona nodded. ‘Once or twice. It's always my fault. And he's always sorry. It doesn't mean he doesn't love me. That's what he tells me, over and over. It doesn't mean that.'

‘No, of course not,' Beth said, feeling nauseous. She stood up. What could she say? You must never, ever put up with it? You must leave him? Suddenly, she wanted to be alone in her room, to think. I must be as stupid as Fiona, she told herself, if knowing that Efe is capable of such behaviour doesn't make me think of him differently.

‘I must go and get ready for dinner now, Fiona,' she said. ‘Will you be okay?'

‘Yes, of course I will, Beth. Thanks so much for helping with Douggie. Everything just gets too much, all of a sudden, you know.'

‘Of course I do,' Beth said. She went over to Fiona and kissed her on the cheek. ‘You look after yourself.'

She glanced at the dressing-table as she spoke. What caught her eye was a photograph in a leather frame, which Fiona must have brought with her and put up next to her make-up. It showed them being a family, her and Efe and Douggie. The little boy was on his father's shoulders and grabbing at his hair. Fiona was looking up at them both, with her hair blowing across her face. She looked radiant. They were walking down a beach somewhere with nothing but blue skies behind them.

*

Late afternoon sunlight made diamond shapes on the raspberry-pink carpet. Leonora's bedroom was silent apart from a purring hum coming from Bertie the cat. He'd followed his mistress upstairs and was now curled up beside her on the bed with one paw resting in a proprietorial manner on her thigh. Leonora lay with her eyes closed, taking stock. That was what she called it to herself, and giving it this rather business-like name made her seem less like an old lady resting before dinner and more like a tycoon assessing the events of a day in the hub of an enormous business empire. Willow Court couldn't be called that, of course, but she did increasingly feel like a juggler, keeping her eye on several coloured balls flying through the air, making sure not one of them fell to the ground.

Her success as a juggler, she often thought, lay in not taking any notice of matters that did not concern her; things like the sound of someone crying which she'd heard before she lay down. She knew the acoustics of the
house and whoever it was was in the bathroom, and because Leonora was aware at the same time of a child chattering away, she deduced that it must be Fiona in tears. Well, that was to be expected. She was pregnant, and Leonora remembered very clearly how weepy she'd been when she was carrying Rilla. Her first pregnancy had been bliss from start to finish, but that was probably unusual, she now realized. And Fiona had to deal with Efe. It would take a woman of considerably more intelligence than Fiona had so far displayed to be able to cope with him. He was, in all probability, like a bear with a sore head because of her own firmness about the pictures. He'd call it ‘obstinacy' of course, but that was Efe all over. He couldn't bear not getting his own way, and in this he resembled his namesake, Leonora's own father. You needed to have your wits about you to deal with men like that. I knew how to and Fiona doesn't and that's all there is to it, Leonora thought. Efe's marriage was not, she felt, her business. She turned her attention to other matters.

She began by ticking a mental checklist of things that should have been done in relation to Sunday's party and every one of them had been. She congratulated herself on the way the marquee had been erected successfully and without fuss. It looked wonderful already, with the lights in place and the lining falling smooth and pale green from the central point, just like a circus tent only smaller. They'd started putting up the decorations, and she'd taken in the sight of what seemed like an army of young people swarming up to the roof of the marquee on ladders with a growing feeling of satisfaction and pleasure. Tomorrow the chairs and tables were arriving and the final touches would be added: flowers, and pale green tablecloths to match the lining of the tent. Leonora suspected that perhaps when you were seventy-five you
ought not to be feeling this rising thrill at the idea of a party but she couldn't help it.

It's because my birthday parties when I was a child weren't anything to speak of, she thought. Ethan and Maude didn't have the knack. There was always an atmosphere of constraint about such occasions when she was very young, the notion that you had to keep things under control so as not to disturb Daddy in any way. Nanny Mouse and the other servants were often in charge, and Leonora felt retrospectively resentful. Surely her mother, at least, could have made the effort to come into the nursery. However shy she was, however much she hated appearing in public, being there for your daughter's birthday was a mother's duty.

Birthday parties seemed to stop after Maude's death, although Leonora could still recall that particular summer because she'd fallen ill and missed her birthday altogether. She'd made quite sure, when Gwen and Rilla were young, to give them parties they'd remember for ever. Efe and Alex and Chloë too; they'd had good times under her roof.

Juggling. There were other things to consider. Rilla seemed to be growing more and more friendly with Sean Everard. Perhaps she was getting into the relationship rather too quickly. Surely at her age she ought to be a bit more dignified? Leonora resolved to have a word with her later. She'd been surprised to find herself less irritated by her younger daughter than she sometimes was, maybe because Rilla was trying to impress Sean. Certainly she appeared quieter and more ladylike than usual, and hadn't displayed too much of what Leonora thought of as her bohemian side. I must, she thought, be grateful for small mercies, and it's also possible that she's making a special effort to please me.

Chloë, Leonora was sure, was plotting something. Alex was nowhere to be seen for most of the time, but
there was nothing unusual about that. Gwen and James were busy, busy, busy with all the domestic arrangements and Efe, well, she herself had rather spoiled his weekend. It couldn't be helped. She shouldn't have mentioned what she'd done to help him in the past, though. It was a mistake to break her promise; not like her at all. At the time, she'd been quite convinced that what she'd said was for the best, but now she was not so sure.

For a moment, as she lay on the bed and let the events of the day drift through her mind, she wondered why it was that she was so set against Efe's plan. Wouldn't it be sensible to take this oportunity of making Ethan Walsh even better known? He deserved to be, she knew that, but there was her father's will and the fact that she had promised him the paintings would never leave Willow Court. Other people might find it easy to make light of promises, but not me, Leonora thought. I keep my word, she said to herself, and then, remembering her conversation with Efe, she blushed. Well, I keep my promises most of the time; ninety-nine per cent of the time; certainly more than most other people. Still, there was a part of her (only a tiny part, naturally, but something) which rather regretted that she would never be photographed at the opening of a dazzling new museum in Ethan Walsh's name.

Bertie moved himself into a more comfortable posture, taking the opportunity to lick his back paws before he settled. Leonora stroked his head as he rearranged himself on the duvet, and thought of all the guests who would be coming to Willow Court on Sunday. One of them was the son of Jeremy Bland, the man who'd helped her so much with the paintings and what to do about them, after Ethan's death. The only person, she thought sadly, who won't be here is my beloved Peter. Rage at the unfairness of this swept over her suddenly and she closed
her eyes. Peter. She tried not to think about him too often, but now she allowed herself to remember everything.

Leonora woke up very early on the day after her wedding. The sky was already light, the birds were singing from every tree in the drive and she was a different person from the one who'd gone to bed last night. She turned to look at Peter's head on the pillow next to her own and wondered how it was possible to be so close to another human being and still find them mysterious. Peter awake, Peter talking to her, or kissing her she could say she knew, but this sleeping man, whose white shoulder was within inches of her own; whose red-brown hair fell over his forehead as he slept and made him look much younger than he did with his eyes open, well, he was someone altogether strange and wonderful. She wanted to put a hand out and stroke his face. She wanted him to wake up and fold her body in his arms as he'd done last night.

She smiled to think how Nanny Mouse had tried – and completely failed – to tell her about what would happen when her new husband took her into bed. Leonora was the first of her contemporaries to get married. She and her friends had discussed sex often, even though none of them spoke as frankly as Leonora would have wished. Not one of us, she thought, had any very clear idea of what to expect, that's the trouble. We were all woefully inexperienced. The notion of the enormous importance of the act, and the transcendent bliss that awaited those who managed to work out what to do when first in bed
with a man came from films and books. Detailed information, on the other hand,
practical
information, was much harder to find.

Nanny Mouse might have had some adventures of an amorous kind in her youth, but it was obvious to Leonora that her knowledge of the subject was hazy in the extreme.

‘I think I have to mention these matters,' she'd said a few days before the wedding. ‘I wish that your poor mother had lived and been able to talk to you about the duties of a wife.' Her head was turned to examine the piece of darning she was engaged in and she was careful not to meet Leonora's gaze as she spoke.

‘I love Peter, Nanny.' Leonora tried to help her, tried to suggest that this conversation was quite unnecessary, really, but Nanny Mouse went doggedly on.

‘Men have certain needs, dear. It's a wife's duty to submit to those needs, and I believe at first the act itself can be quite painful. Though they do say you get used to it.'

Leonora stifled a giggle. ‘It's all right, Nanny,' she said. ‘I do know all about that. Really.'

This wasn't altogether true, but Nanny Mouse relaxed visibly and even managed to look at Leonora and smile at her.

‘Good, dear. I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't be frightened.'

‘No, I could never be frightened of Peter. I love him.'

‘I think everyone agrees that love is important,' said Nanny Mouse.

At least, Leonora reflected as she lay beside her husband, I wasn't shocked by the naked body of a man. There were advantages to growing up surrounded by books full of lavish reproductions of Hellenistic and Renaissance sculpture: you knew what everything looked like. She closed her eyes and thought of Peter, standing
undressed in front of her for the first time. Perhaps if you weren't expecting it at all, the sight might be a little surprising! She hadn't had time even to think, and she was grateful for that.

Everything had happened both too quickly for her to be aware of any conscious thought, and also so slowly that she thought the world must have stopped turning. Perhaps she had a special talent for love because she'd felt no pain, or perhaps the blinding, breathless flood of feeling between her legs, and all over her – her skin, her hair, every nerve-ending – was what other people thought of as hurting. I didn't, Leonora thought. I don't.

For what seemed like hours, Peter had breathed into her hair, kissed her all over, touched her, spoken words into her ear that warmed and melted her. She'd never realized how close two bodies could be. One flesh. That was what they had become and that part of the one flesh that was entirely Leonora longed for those feelings all over again.

She turned her head to see whether Peter was awake yet, but he wasn't. His eyelids were pale blue and she could see veins in his forehead she'd never noticed before. She wanted to put out her hand and touch him, draw him to her, but she closed her eyes instead. If I go to sleep again, then he'll wake me with a kiss. I shall be like Sleeping Beauty.

Something like a half-sleep came to her and the words from yesterday's ceremony sounded in her head, weirdly entwined with those of the funeral service.
Who gives this woman … to love and to cherish … ashes to ashes
 …
in sure and certain hope of the resurrection
 …
let no man put asunder
.