Facing the Light (54 page)

Rilla nodded. There was nothing to say. Leonora was already going on with her confession as though she had to get to the end of it, otherwise she might lose her nerve.

‘He came to sit beside me. I don't know when I noticed that his arm was around my shoulders, but there it was and then somehow I had turned to him and he was kissing me and touching me and it was minutes … whole minutes … before I came to my senses and pushed him away and told him to leave.' Leonora stared down at her hands and her voice was so small that Rilla had to lean towards her to hear what she was saying. ‘The worst thing was, I wanted him, Rilla. My love for your father was not like other kinds of love, you know. I've never, ever loved another man, and I would no sooner have married again than gone to the moon, and yet Hugh managed to get under my skin a little. I confess that.'

She shook her head. ‘It's not something a child wants to hear about her mother, is it? I'm so sorry to have spoken of it, but I did think you should know. That all the anger you felt towards me was … how shall I put it? A little justified. Yes, that's it. A little justified. I was jealous of you, Rilla. Of what you and Hugh had together. That's a dreadful thing for a mother to feel. I'm so, so sorry, darling. Can you forgive me?'

The first thing that occurred to Rilla was that this was the first time in her whole life that she'd heard Leonora allude to her own sexual feelings. She was right. That side of her mother's life was not something Rilla ever thought about. Quite the reverse, in fact. The very idea of Leonora in bed with anyone at any time in her life made Rilla feel queasy. She remembered vividly how beautiful her mother had been when she herself was seventeen. Leonora was younger when I was going out with Hugh than I am now, she thought. This was a sobering notion,
for what had Rilla been thinking about, to the exclusion of almost everything else since she'd met Sean, but sex? Oh, God, how complicated people were. How impossible it was ever to know anyone, especially your parents. She said, ‘Mother, there's nothing at all to forgive. Hugh was very handsome and charming. Only a log would have been immune to that. You were a very beautiful woman, you know. And you were younger than I am now.'

Leonora smiled. ‘Thank you, Rilla darling. I couldn't have done things differently but I
am
sorry that you were hurt. And I regret not talking to you about it before. I do regret that, very much.' She sighed. ‘I haven't ever talked to you properly, I don't think. It had never occurred to me before and I'm ashamed to have to admit it, but I think the fact that your father died while I was expecting you coloured everything. It's a very shaming thing to confess and even after all these years I blush when I think of how terribly unfair it was. But I was, how do they put it, distracted with grief. Half mad, really. More than half. And I blamed you, my poor little baby. Blamed you for his death, although of course you had nothing to do with it.'

Tears stood in Leonora's eyes. ‘I've never said anything like this to anyone before, but I was
too
much in love with Peter. And it's made me unfair to you, all your life, really. But you
do
know that I love you, Rilla, don't you?'

‘Yes, Mother, of course I do.' She thought she could see the physical signs of relief in Leonora: her shoulders straighter, her head held higher, her eyes brighter.

‘I'm glad. You're being very generous, darling. It's such a relief, because you've been on my conscience so much lately, and I find it hard to apologize for anything, as you know.'

She smiled to show that this last remark was not meant entirely seriously. Rilla smiled back. ‘But,' she continued,
‘I
am
sorry. Really sorry, darling. That's the main thing I wanted to say. I hope you can forgive me.'

Rilla bit her lip to stop herself from crying. Her mother had unexpectedly shown her a wound, and she wanted, illogically, both to comfort Leonora as though she were a child, and also to cry out and say stop, you're my mother. You're not supposed to be the one who's in pain. You're meant to look after me. She answered somewhat shakily.

‘Of course, Mother darling. But there's nothing to forgive, honestly. It must have been so ghastly to lose a husband you loved so much. I can't even begin to imagine it. Please don't feel bad about it any more. Promise me?'

‘You're being kind to me, darling, and I'm so grateful. I'm not very good at being looked after, am I? But I'm feeling better now. I'll go, and let you get dressed for dinner. But I did just want to warn you about something. You won't think I'm an interfering old busybody, will you?'

Rilla laughed. It was a relief to hear Leonora sounding like herself again; a relief to take on again the part she'd grown so used to, that of the less well-behaved of two daughters. ‘Go on, Mother,' she said. ‘What have I done wrong now?'

‘Nothing. Nothing at all, Rilla. It's just that I couldn't help noticing that you and Sean were … how shall I put it … getting a little close. Don't you think you're rushing things a bit? You've only just met him after all.'

This is not the time, Rilla thought, to tell her roughly to butt out and mind her own business.

‘Now, Mother,' she said as mildly as she could, ‘what have you always told me about meeting Daddy and knowing within a few seconds that he was the one you would always love? Love at first sight, remember? And you were only a child. I'm nearly fifty. I do know my own mind, you know, and actually, I agree with you. It
is
quick, and at first I worried about that but now I've
decided I don't care. I don't want to waste any more time. That's the truth, Mother, and I hope you don't mind me speaking so frankly.'

Leonora laughed. ‘You're quite right. Of course you are, and none of this is my business at all. But I don't want you to be hurt, darling.'

‘I'm sure I won't be,' Rilla said. ‘But you couldn't prevent it, I'm afraid, whatever you do.'

‘I know. I know that, Rilla, but I've learned some things about my own mother today which have made me reconsider everything.' She smiled. ‘I'm being enigmatic, I know, and I will tell you everything at dinner, but I just wanted to say it. I worry about you, and I haven't always been the best of mothers.'

Leonora walked over to the dressing-table, and before Rilla could say anything she felt her mother's hands on her shoulders and a kiss on the crown of her head. She hasn't kissed me like that, Rilla thought, since I was about five.

‘I'm a silly old woman,' Leonora murmured. ‘Bless you, darling.'

Rilla blinked back tears. ‘You too, Mummy,' she managed to say, before Leonora turned and went to the door. As soon as she'd gone, Rilla thought, I called her ‘Mummy'. I haven't done that for years and years. Had she noticed? Rilla looked in the mirror and considered the repairs she needed to make to her face. She smiled. All this emotion was hard on the complexion.

*

Sean let the cooling stream of the shower fall on his head and wondered how Leonora was managing. The visit to Nanny Mouse had been extraordinary. He'd caught all of what had been said on film, but it was doubtful that he'd use it in that form. He would have loved to discuss his thoughts with Rilla, but a promise was a promise and Leonora had been quite clear that she wanted no one to
know what had been spoken about this afternoon. He turned his mind to what he'd seen from his window when he'd first come upstairs.

A car was going down the drive and he thought he saw a woman at the wheel; a flash of blonde hair. She was going much too fast, whoever she was. Not Rilla, or Gwen, who was dark, and neither Chloë nor Leonora, whom he'd seen walking up to the house from the gazebo. Who else was there, he asked himself, and then it came to him. Fiona was a blonde, and even though she'd barely registered on Sean's radar, he had noticed that she looked miserable for much of the time. In all probability, he thought, she's had a fight with Efe and driven off in a temper. He hoped very much that she would calm down a little before she got to the main road and then forgot about her completely as his thoughts turned to Rilla. Wherever she was, it would soon be time for dinner and she'd be there. Tonight he would see to it that they were seated next to one another. And perhaps whatever it was that was going on would be explained at last.

He stepped out of the shower, and hummed as he took a clean shirt out of his suitcase. The sight of his birthday present to Leonora made him smile. The family were all going to give her their gifts after dinner tonight and had kindly allowed him to add his parcel to theirs. His present was a small white television and video recorder, on which she would be able to watch his film when it was ready. He was longing to see her face when she opened the box which now stood in the corner, looking a little silly with a pink ribbon stuck on it as an afterthought. Sean didn't see the point of wrapping, but recognized the inappropriateness of brown cardboard for conveying a feeling of festivity.

*

Sean looked round the table. He'd missed dinner last night, but it struck him how different the atmosphere was
now from what it had been for his first meal at Willow Court. All over the house, there was the sort of excitement in the air that he generally associated with Christmas; a sense of secret gift-wrapping, and getting clothes ready, and delicious smells coming from the kitchen. Various members of the family had been whispering to one another during drinks on the terrace, and every so often someone disappeared somewhere only to emerge later looking faintly embarrassed. Efe seemed distracted and his eyes were red-rimmed. If it had been anyone else, Sean would have sworn he'd been crying, but in his case it was probably some kind of allergy to the heat or the pollen.

The weather had been extraordinary for the last few days, as though Leonora had ordered up a perfect English summer to surround the house especially for her birthday. Sometimes Sean felt that Willow Court was separated from the real world; that the entire house and its inhabitants were part of a beautiful arrangement under some gigantic glass dome. He smiled to himself. Too much excellent Chardonnay, that was his problem. That, and being in love, which turned you into the sort of fanciful dork who might easily have a thought like that.

This time, too, the seating plan at the table was different. He was next to Rilla, who looked perfect and smelled of something so delicious that he had to restrain himself from burying his face in the crease of her neck. Fiona was indisposed. Efe had told them she was going to get an early night in order to be ready for tomorrow. She was, according to her husband, sorry to have to miss Leonora opening her presents. Gwen, even in a rather flattering ice-blue silk shirt, looked careworn, with that
have I covered all possible contingencies?
air that he recognized from every stage manager he'd ever met. Still, James, who had clearly been knocking back the wine, was talking to her in an animated way and she was
gradually relaxing. Beth wasn't eating properly. Sean looked at her pushing Mary's salmon en croûte around her plate and wondered what was worrying her. She kept glancing across the table at Efe, but it wasn't the dazed, worshipping gaze he'd noticed when he first saw them together. She was sitting next to Alex and nodding as he spoke to her. There was another change. Alex was neatly dressed in a clean white shirt and dark linen trousers. Chloë and Philip were tucking into their food. He supposed that what she was wearing represented some kind of evening dress, but the effect of a deliberately trashy pearl and diamond tiara stuck into the gelled spikes of her blonde hair, crowning a beige lace blouse and a black taffeta skirt, was more comical than glamorous.

Leonora had chosen to wear black. She looked pale and rather fragile, and the pearls of her necklace were lustrous against the waterfall of chiffon that formed the lapels of her blouse. She had been quieter than usual, even though he'd tried to engage her in conversation several times. She'd eaten very little of the avocado cocktail and hardly any salmon at all. Sean had watched many, many after-dinner speakers and some of the more nervous ones behaved exactly as Leonora was behaving now. He wondered whether the excitement of the party tomorrow might have had this effect, and doubted it. There had to be something else. He was just on the point of asking her, tactfully, whether anything was wrong, when she tapped gently on the side of her wine glass with her fork. Everybody fell silent.

‘Thank you, everyone,' she said. ‘I have something to tell all of you now, which is somewhat difficult and also extremely important, and I thought it would be best to do it now, before dessert is served. This is going to be an ordeal for me, so I hope you'll all bear with me and let
me finish what I have to say before you ask any questions.'

Sean looked round the table at the family, nodding and murmuring their agreement, turning their faces to Leonora. She opened her sequinned handbag and took out a sheet of paper, which she unfolded carefully and laid on the tablecloth. Then, very slowly, she opened her spectacle case and put on her reading-glasses. She did this quietly, but there was an element of theatricality in the way she then looked all around the table before she spoke.

‘This', she said, tapping the sheet of paper with one finger, ‘is a suicide note written by my mother.'

For a moment, Leonora thought she would faint. The faces all round the table seemed to be blurring: white circles against the dark walls of the dining room. Something caught the light and glittered. That ridiculous headdress Chloë was wearing, which reminded Leonora of the kind of thing Rilla and Gwen used to like to take out of the dressing-up box in the nursery when they were little girls. She could feel the silence stretching out and knew that she had to speak again. It had taken every ounce of her strength to keep the contents of this letter to herself from the time that Chloë had brought it to her until now.