Holding On (43 page)

‘I've been a fool,' he said with the same devastating simplicity – and sat down again in the middle of the sofa.

‘Quite,' said Clarrie, rolling his eyes at Kit, who had returned with three glasses. ‘And what is Sin going to say to this?' he muttered as they bent together over the table.

‘Shut up,' said Kit briefly. ‘I need time to think.' She handed Andrew a generous glassful of fine ruby port. ‘Here,' she said. ‘Get yourself outside that.'

She and Clarrie sat down on either side of him and raised their glasses.

‘I love her,' said Andrew happily, after his third glass.

‘Feller's got a point,' said Clarrie, peering gloomily into his glass. ‘Something's gone out of it, no doubt about that.'

‘Try some more,' said Kit, struggling with the growing impression that she was presiding over some kind of Mad Hatter's tea party. ‘Tastes OK to me. You only think that because of what you've read. Bet you wouldn't have noticed otherwise. Have you had any lunch, Andrew?'

He roused himself, blinking a little, and shook his head. Kit and Clarrie exchanged glances.

‘I'll take him down and feed him,' said Clarrie, setting down his glass. ‘Get him out of the way. You'll want to think things over. Get yourself prepared for Sin and so on. Come on, old chap. Let's go downstairs. I've got plenty of stuff in for you. You can unpack while I cook you something.'

Kit watched them go and then took their glasses into the kitchen. She was beginning to feel guilty about the way she'd shouted at Andrew and anxious that Sin might not be pleased that her love for Andrew had been so recklessly disclosed.

Kit thought: I was momentarily unhinged. Hearing that wretched song out of nowhere and remembering sitting in that coffee bar with Jake . . .

She felt heavy with loneliness and a terrible depression. Would she never recover from the loss of his love and friendship? Even if he had died he could have hardly become less accessible, yet this was not quite true. There was always the faint possibility that he might one day return to her. She was unwilling to dwell on any of the reasons why this should happen but it was this tiny hope which, on really bad days, made life possible. It was odd that Andrew had in some instinctive way recognised her mood which had enabled him to speak out in an utterly uncharacteristic way. The words had been said, however, and now everything would change. Knowing that Andrew loved her might make the whole situation even more frustrating for Sin – yet surely it must also bring a measure of comfort?

Kit glanced at her watch. It was a while yet before Sin would be home and there was time to bath, put on clean clothes and prepare herself for her arrival. Even if Andrew recovered his senses and never mentioned the subject again it was quite impossible to hope that Clarrie would remain silent so it was important that Sin should be forewarned. Remembering that when Andrew had appeared she'd been tidying the small room which she used as a study, Kit swore beneath her breath. A client was arriving in the morning to discuss furnishing his art gallery and coffee bar, and she was still not quite ready for him. Cursing aloud this time she hurried out of the kitchen, paused in the sitting room to pick up the remaining port and her glass, and went to finish her task.

‘I can't get over it,' said Maria for the hundredth time as they sat round the pine refectory table, breakfast nearly over. ‘I simply can't. It's just so fantastic.' She fondled the letter which had arrived earlier, turning it over, unfolding it, rereading it. ‘To be selected out of so many candidates and then offered a scholarship as well.' She shook her head and smiled mistily at Edward. ‘You are a clever little boy.'

Edward, feeling that some response was required, slipped down from his chair and went to lean against her, revelling in his moment of glory, yet a little unnerved by the sudden reality of his new status. In September, it seemed, he would be starting as a very junior chorister at the Cathedral School in Salisbury. His mother and grandmother had been so excited by this prospect, this great hope, that it would have needed a much stronger character than his to find the courage to voice the doubts and fears which had been growing steadily in the last few months. He had several of these, the chief of which was that he would have to leave the small private school where he felt safe and happy and where gradually he had made two or three very good friends. He was not yet eight and his conducted tour of the choir school and the great cathedral had done nothing to allay his private terrors. The boys had all been so busy, so confident, so focused, that he'd felt quite alien.

Later, back at home, he'd tried to explain this to Jolyon, who had attempted to reassure him by explaining that soon he would be exactly the same as the rest of the boys; anyone who had a gift brought that same kind of concentration to it.

‘Look at Bess,' Jolyon had said comfortingly. ‘Her music means an awful lot to her, doesn't it? It's a gift, see?'

Edward had looked at him quickly. ‘I wish you'd come, too,' he said. ‘If I have to go, that is . . .'

‘I can't sing a note,' Jolyon had said cheerfully, ‘but we'll all come to listen to you.'

‘I don't want to go,' his brother had insisted miserably – and Jolyon had sat down beside him on the bed.

‘You'd have to change schools sooner or later,' he'd pointed out. ‘I shall have to go somewhere else when I'm eleven. I'm hoping that it's a place in Winchester where all my friends will be going. That's the trouble with life really, nothing ever stays the same. Look at Daddy. He's always having to go somewhere different.'

‘But I don't want to live away from home.' Tears had threatened, and Jolyon had cast about him for some distraction.

‘Maybe they won't take you,' he'd said. ‘They've only got room for a few. Look, it's nearly time for the
Pink Panther
. Let's go down and watch. You can play with my Bond car if you like . . .'

Now, on this Saturday morning, Edward looked across the table at Jolyon, who was still finishing his toast. He was spreading marmalade slowly and carefully, his fair head bent, and Edward felt another twinge of anxiety as he imagined school life without the presence of his big brother. They might argue and fight but let an outsider become in the least way aggressive and the ranks closed. Jolyon had sorted out many a small problem for him in the past but now, with his place a reality, he began to feel seriously frightened.

‘I don't want to be away from home,' he said tremulously. ‘I just don't want to.'

He felt his mother's arm go round him, pressing him against her, and he smelled the delicious smell that was so much part of her. He turned and put his arms about her neck. He wanted to please her, to accept the place he knew was so important to her, but he simply couldn't bear the thought of not coming back each day to his own things, to his own home . . .

‘You don't have to,' she said, ‘not if you really don't want to. I'm sure we can sort it all out. There will be a way, don't worry.'

He was aware of a strange kind of silence and twisted his head to look at his father who smiled at him.

‘It's a long way off,' he said comfortingly. ‘No need to worry about it yet. It's a tremendous achievement, Edward. How would you like to celebrate your success?'

Edward's clasp on his mother loosened, though he continued to loll against her, and some of his previous excitement returned. September was a long way away and anything might happen in that time. Meanwhile everyone was very pleased with him and he could see that there was much to be said for this state of affairs. Grandma had promised him great things, should he be successful. His mother let him go, laughing a little.

‘Quite right,' she said. ‘A celebration is definitely in order. What's it to be?'

Jolyon was still silent, eating his toast and Edward was seized with a heady sense of triumph, even superiority. He might be a year and a half younger than his brother but at last he'd done something Jolyon couldn't. This feeling of consequence lasted for as long as it took him to remember how Jolyon had comforted him when he'd come back from that first visit to Salisbury.

‘What shall we do, Jo?' he asked casually – ‘Don't call him, Jo,' his mother said, though less irritably than usual – and grinned when Jolyon lifted his head to look at him.

‘It's
your
treat,' his mother reminded him before his brother could answer. ‘Not Jolyon's. But it's very nice of you to include him. Do hurry up and finish that toast, Jolyon, and then go upstairs and clean your teeth. You, too, Edward, and you can be thinking about this celebration.'

Jolyon finished his toast, pushed back his chair and the boys went out together. There was another silence. Hal poured himself some more coffee.

‘Can I assume from this sudden turn of events,' he asked, ‘that you won't be coming down to Devon when I join
Broadsword
?'

Maria stood up and began piling plates together. ‘I don't think I actually said that I would come,' she said defensively. ‘I certainly don't want to live at The Keep. I've told you before that I have no intention of being a cross between a hotel-keeper and an unpaid nurse to a group of geriatrics. I haven't changed my mind.'

‘Yes, you've made that very clear during the last few years.'

Hal watched her as she piled dishes into the sink. It occurred to him that Maria was constantly reinventing herself. She used clothes and hairstyles to create new images and he wondered rather sadly whether the original Maria still existed. Today she was wearing a wide-shouldered turquoise shirt over tight jeans, which were tucked into Western-style leather boots, a gilt chain belt slung about her hips; her hair was carefully layered and casually arranged like the girl's whose name he could never remember in the television programme
Dallas
.

‘Well then.' Maria shrugged as she turned on the tap. Hot water poured into the bowl causing the soapsuds to rise in a frothy mounds which covered the china. ‘I simply must phone Mum and tell her the good news. She'll be over the moon.'

‘I'm sure she will,' he said mildly, ‘but you haven't answered my question. We don't have to live at The Keep. There are other houses in Devon.'

‘Yes, I know that.' Her voice was irritable. She had no wish to be distracted from this moment of pleasure. ‘But you must see that this changes things.'

‘Quite. I think that's what I said to begin with, wasn't it?'

‘Oh, don't talk in that sarky way to me,' she said impatiently, plunging her rubber-gloved hands into the steaming soapsuds and pausing to add some more cold water. ‘I'm not some kind of stupid sailor. OK, yes, it does change things and no, I won't be coming to Devon. Edward's much too young to send away to boarding school. I know he'll be eight soon but he's very young for his age. I shall have to stay here.'

Hal set down his cup. ‘Are you seriously contemplating driving him to and from Salisbury every day from here? For heaven's sake . . .'

‘Oh, don't be so daft. Of course I'm not. We shall have to move to Salisbury.'

In the pause that followed, the pile on the draining board grew, spoons and knives clattering down beside the plates as she wielded the soft cotton mop.

‘And what about Jolyon?' asked Hal at last. ‘I thought we'd decided on the day school in Winchester for him.'

‘I've been thinking about that.' Maria stripped off the gloves and reached for the tea cloth. ‘You know I think it would be best, after all, if Jolyon were to go to boarding school. It would be simpler all round.'

‘Simpler for whom?' asked Hal after a moment. His voice was cool and Maria turned her back on him and began to dry the breakfast things. ‘You were quite emphatic that you wanted the boys at home. You said that you didn't want them to go away and that not moving around would give them a sense of security. One of the reasons you didn't want to come to Devon was that you said that Jolyon was so happy at school and that he could go on with all his friends when he was eleven.'

‘I know I said that,' said Maria rapidly, still not looking at him. ‘But you must see how this changes things. It's a wonderful opportunity for Edward. We can't possibly refuse it.'

‘I'm not suggesting that we should refuse it.' Hal stood up. ‘If you don't want him to board he could live with your mother. She lives minutes out of Salisbury. He could get home here often and I'm sure your mother would be delighted to do her bit. She's talked about nothing else since his interview.'

‘And why shouldn't she?' She turned quickly, angrily. ‘We happen to be proud of him, even if you're not.'

‘I'm very proud of him. But he's not the only member of this family. We have to think about Jolyon, too.'

‘I'm afraid that gifted children take preference in any family,' she said firmly. ‘Anyway, Jolyon would fit in anywhere. He's much more confident than Edward.'

‘That's not what you said when I suggested that he should go to prep school at eight. If he goes away to boarding school in September he'll be two years behind all the other boys and he'll find it very difficult to make friends—'

‘I've thought about that,' she interrupted. ‘I think he should go to Herongate. Jamie and Bess will look after him. I shall move to Salisbury and you can be at The Keep whenever you can't get home. Then we're all happy.'

‘Are we?' Hal murmured. He looked at her thoughtfully, watching the colour rise in her cheeks. ‘Are we indeed?'