Fire and Hemlock (44 page)

“Don’t tell me!” Polly said. “And I’ve just made you break that one too. I told you not to protect me. Years ago.”

“But you also told me not to be obedient,” Tom pointed out.

At this, Polly rounded on him in exasperation, and found they had come to the end of the street. It ended in two stone pillars supporting an open gate. The name Hunsdon House was engraved deep into each pillar. “We seem to have got Nowhere,” she said dryly.

“What did you expect?” Tom put down his cello in the gateway and leaned against the left-hand pillar. Polly did not blame him for being reluctant to go in. “Let’s not wrangle any more,” he said. “I’m almost out of time.” He held out a hand towards Polly.

Polly stumbled over the cello in her hurry to get near and nearly fell against Tom’s chest. They wrapped their arms around one another. Tom was more solid and limber than Polly had expected, and warmer, and just a little gawky. He threaded both hands into Polly’s damp hair and kissed her eyes as well as her mouth. “I’ve always loved your hair,” he said.

“I know,” Polly said.

They stayed clenched together in the gateway until Polly became aware of Laurel’s sweet, tinkling voice. “Tom!” it said from somewhere in the distance, more and more insistently. “Tom!” It became impossible to ignore. They sighed and let go of one another. Tom picked up the cello again and they walked side by side up the shaded drive and round towards the garden where Laurel’s voice was coming from. Polly was light-headed with strange, miserable joy. In a way it was worth it, she thought, except that it was such a total waste.

At first sight it seemed to be autumn in the garden. The trees there were an unmoving glory of rust, copper-green, olive-silver and strong yellow, fading to purple and deep rose red. But it was hot as summer. Polly’s hair and Tom’s parka steamed in the heat. Swallows flickered in the blue sky overhead, and bees filled the crowding roses to one side – not white roses as Polly remembered, but heavy red and bronze and glaring pink. The shape of the garden had changed too. The lawn now sloped clear down from the house to the place with the empty concrete pool, which was in full view, flanked by six-foot growths of hemlock. The pool was not precisely empty any longer. It was shimmering, all over a surface that did not seem to be there. Strong, colourless ripples bled upwards from it, like water or heated air, wavering the hemlocks and the trees where they passed. Polly could not look at it.

The people were all gathered in the upper part of the lawn, holding wine glasses. It could have been a harmless, charming picnic. They were in elegant clothes, the women in long dresses and picture hats, the men in white or in morning dress. There was a murmur of talk and laughter. Laurel, wearing a long green gown, was reclining in a swinging garden seat under a little tree whose leaves were the same orange-brown as the drink she was sipping. Leslie was lolling beside her on the seat. He did not seem to be able to take his eyes off Laurel. The look on his face was dreamy, besotted, adoring, but spiced with wickedness, as if at least half his feelings were guilty ones.

Seeing Leslie, Tom muttered something and turned rather sharply away to one side of the garden seat, where four chairs and four music stands were set out. Ann and Sam and Ed were there, unpacking music and getting out their viola and violins. They looked round as Tom and Polly came up, with relieved recognition.

“So you got here!” Sam said to Polly. “That makes me feel better.”

“Let’s hope we can do something,” Ed added.

Ann just smiled at Polly, tensely and meaningly. So they know me, Polly thought. Which means that Laurel has no need to bother any more. She watched Tom shed his parka to show a sober, ordinary suit like Sam’s and Ed’s. The four of them sat down and began tuning strings, as if they had been hired to entertain the picnic party. And the elegant, chatting people took no more notice of them than they did of the various servitors going round with drinks. Nobody offered the quartet a drink. They were just hired servants too. Which, Polly thought, was what Tom had been all along to these people.

Here she looked up to see Seb and Mr Leroy staring at her. They were standing together lower down the lawn, and Polly had seldom seen two people look more aghast. The identical horror on their faces brought out the likeness between them, although Seb was tall and trim and elegant in white, and Mr Leroy was elderly and yellowing and ill, sagging inside his grey morning coat. As Polly looked, Seb said something to his father – it was clearly, “Let me handle her!” – and hurried up the slope to Polly.

He’s even getting dark places under his eyes, Polly thought as Seb came up to her.

“My Pol!” said Seb. “What
are
you doing here?”

“I remembered,” said Polly. “I’ve come for Tom.”

Seb sagged, so that he looked even more like Mr Leroy, and fixed her with a sort of desperate glare. “Polly! Think of
me!
”

“I am,” said Polly, “and I don’t like what I’m thinking. I don’t like what you did.”

Seb, to do him justice, made no attempt to bluster or pretend. “But it was between me and him,” he said. “It always was. And Tom used you too. Surely you understand, Polly! If they don’t take him, they’ll take me instead.”

Polly turned her eyes from his desperately glaring face. Beside her, Tom was bending over the strings of his cello, not looking at her, pretending he could not hear every word Seb said. She thought of the way Seb had gripped her that time, outside the Leroys’ London flat, and she did see that Seb had been afraid for most of his life. Beyond Seb, Mr Leroy saggingly propped himself on a stick, and down beyond him the transparent living current bled upwards from the pool, shimmering the hemlocks. Seb had managed her, Polly thought, just as he always did, and brought her to a complete dead end. Her eyes moved on to Leslie. He was gently swinging the seat, smiling languorously at Laurel. And I didn’t even do anything about him! she thought. I should have rung up Nina and
made
her understand. That’s one thing I should have done.

Seb saw her looking at Leslie. “Laurel’s not through with him,” he said. “She won’t let him go yet. Besides, he’s not much of a life. Polly – please!”

“Oh shut up, Seb,” Polly said. “I wasn’t—”

“One of us has got to go,” Seb insisted. “My father’s on his last legs. He’s been waiting eighteen years now. And Tom’s ten years older than I am. He’s had some time at least!”

Oh God! Polly thought. What am I to do?

Beside her, the strings were tuned. The quartet started to play. When Tom began it, gently rolling sullen, swelling notes out of the cello, she assumed it would be designed to show him as the superb cellist he was. But when Ann’s viola came mourning in, she wondered if it might be intended as a dirge. Beyond Ann, Sam’s violin sang, and Ed’s sang and soared, and the music became something else again, nearly light-hearted. Showing how much the quartet needed Tom? Polly wondered. There was no question they were a good quartet these days. They had improved almost out of mind from the afternoon Polly had spent hearing them practise in the green basement. Everyone was attending. The strolling people gathered round and sat on the grass to listen. Laurel turned round in her seat. Even Leslie forgot Laurel sufficiently to sit up and lean forward raptly. Only Seb, standing close to Polly, was tense and inattentive.

The music broadened and deepened, put on majesty and passion, and moved onward in some way, fuller and fuller. All four players were putting their entire selves into it. Polly knew they were not trying to prove anything – or not really. She let the music take her, with relief, because while it lasted she would not have to make a decision or come to a dead end. She found her mind dwelling on Nowhere, as she and Tom used to imagine it. You slipped between Here and Now to the hidden Now and Here – as Laurel had once told another Tom, there was that bonny path in the middle – but you did not necessarily leave the world. Here was a place where the quartet was grinding out dissonances. There was a lovely tune beginning to emerge from it. Two sides to Nowhere, Polly thought. One really was a dead end. The other was the void that lay before you when you were making up something new out of ideas no one else had quite had before. That’s a discovery I must do something about, Polly thought, as the lovely tune sang out fully once and then fell away to end, as the piece had begun, in a long, sullen cello note. And her mind was made up.

There was a polite patter of applause. “Isn’t it odd,” Polly heard someone behind her say, “how they always do something like this? It seems to bring out the best in them.”

And if I hadn’t decided, I would after that! Polly thought. Everyone was looking at Laurel now. Laurel was sitting up straight, smiling at Tom. “You mustn’t think I don’t understand,” she said. “But it’s time now, Tom.”

Tom got up and propped his cello carefully against the chair. Polly felt Seb begin to relax beside her. Ann turned round and, rather grimly, stowed her viola in its case. Ed and Sam sat where they were, looking urgently at Polly. My move, Polly thought. Mr Leroy was coming heavily up the slope towards Laurel’s seat. The King, Polly thought. The King who takes the lives of other men to make himself immortal.

But before Polly could move, Mr Piper burst out from among the rose bushes and pushed his way through the elegant crowd until he was in front of Laurel’s seat. “Leslie!” he shouted. Leslie blinked up at him from beside Laurel, and then looked over at Tom in a puzzled way and seemed to wonder what was going on.

Laurel sat up very straight. There was suddenly not the least doubt that this was a Court, and Laurel was its Queen. “Charles Lynn,” she said coldly. “What are you doing here?”

Mr Piper loomed in front of her, grasping at the air with his huge hands, which looked queerly useless to him, as if he had been born with lobster’s claws. “Let Leslie go,” he said. “You cow!” Laurel simply looked at him. He put up a lobster hand to guard his eyes. “All right,” he said. “You can take me instead if you want. Just let Leslie go.”

“No,” said Laurel. “I never make more than one bargain, Charles, and I made mine with you sixteen years ago when I let you go in exchange for your brother.”

“Well, I knew what I was in for, didn’t I? And you didn’t like that,” Mr Piper said. “Besides, he was the one you really wanted anyway, wasn’t he?”

“Oh, go away, Charles,” said Laurel.

“Just a moment,” Tom put in. Mr Piper turned round awkwardly and backed away when he found Tom right beside him. “Didn’t I have any say in this bargain at all? Who took that photograph?”

“You did – you were always pinching my camera. I only made the enlargement,” said Mr Piper. “Leave me alone, can’t you! Why do you keep trying to hunt me down?”

“Because I knew it was you,” Tom said. “It had to be, from the way you kept out of sight when I came. It was a pretty poor trick, making Edna pretend to be your sister, and it didn’t fool me for long anyway. And I needed to know how that bargain was made.”

“And you helped her get Leslie!” Mr Piper said. “I’m glad I made it!”

“Be quiet, both of you,” Laurel said. “I’m obliged to you, Charles. Tom’s life is one of the most valuable we’ve had – even his infuriating habit of fighting everything I do. Morton needs a strong life just now. But the obligation has nothing to do with Leslie.”

At this, Mr Piper lost his uneasy temper and shouted, “You unfeeling bitch!”

Laurel raised her face and looked at him. “Go away,” she said. Caught in the tunnel of her eyes, Charles Lynn put his arm across his glasses and staggered. Two servitors came up and took hold of him, and looked at Laurel for instructions. “Take him home,” said Laurel. “His wife will be worrying.” As Mr Piper disappeared backwards among the crowd, still faintly trying to shout insults, Laurel turned, gently and sweetly, to Tom. “I’m sorry, Tom, but you will find the bargain holds. The picture
was
yours.”

But it isn’t! Polly thought. He gave it to me! Mr Piper was still to be heard in the background as she pushed her way forward. Seb made an effort to hang on to her, but she shook him off, hardly noticing.

“I never agreed to it,” Tom said. “Don’t look her in the eyes, Polly.”

Laurel smiled at him indulgently. “Oh no, Polly,” she said.

“Didn’t you hear me tell Charles that I never make more than one bargain?”

“Yes,” said Polly. “And I agreed to forget Tom, though I never said for how long, and that isn’t the same as giving him up. But I haven’t come to quibble.” She looked carefully between Laurel and Leslie, two fair heads. “I claim that Morton Leroy has forfeited his right to Tom’s life. And he’ll have to find someone else or go himself.”

“We second that,” said Ed. He and Sam and Ann were standing beside Polly, all looking very determined.

Mr Leroy propped himself on his stick opposite. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked so much on the point of disintegration that Polly could hardly bear to see him. He could have been a walking corpse. “Laurel,” he said, “I don’t think these people have any right to be here.”

“Yes we have,” said Ann. “My mother was a Leroy, and she told me we had a right to invite three friends.”

Laurel looked at Ann carefully. “Very well,” she said. “In that case, I’ll investigate. Polly dear, I hope you’re not just wasting our time.”

“I’m not,” said Polly. “It is right, isn’t it, that Tom’s life is sacrosanct up to this? I mean that, no matter how crazily he drives or whatever other dangerous thing he does, he wasn’t supposed to get hurt.”