Losing Nicola (10 page)

A flash of Orlando's face came back to me. In the darkness of my bedroom, I was able to examine it more carefully, and come to the conclusion that while its predominant emotion had been one of shock, there'd been a certain amount of satisfaction there too. But what could he have been satisfied about? I wondered if he'd seen Nicola and Yelland up there before. Whether he had persuaded me up to the Secret Glade in order to demonstrate just what kind of a girl she was. To shatter whatever illusions about her I still held intact.

My mother obviously spoke to the mothers of David, Jeremy, Julian and Charles. The boys found themselves more comfortable with a tangible enemy like Edwardes than they'd been with the possibility of a spy lurking on Mrs Sheffield's first floor. For a few days, Bella and Ava were escorted wherever they went, which proved useful for carrying the shopping. The red-faced husband could be seen from time to time, lurching along the front, or balefully eyeing the house, or, if it was after dark, shouting obscenities at us.

I didn't tell anyone, not even Orlando, but I was sure Ava was right. I'd seen Nicola once, from Sasha's window, sitting on a bench, talking to a man I now recognized as Edwardes. She had been pointing at our windows, and it hadn't looked as though she was using some of her own ripe language to tell him to leave us alone. Quite the opposite.

F
iona smiled at us across the breakfast table. ‘Good news, darlings. Or bad, depending on your outlook.'

Most of us looked apprehensive. ‘What?'

‘You're sending us all to an orphanage and taking the veil,' hazarded Orlando.

‘I said
good
news, Orlando.'

‘Maybe the little blighter considers an orphanage good news,' muttered Bertram Yelland. He surveyed his porridge. ‘Can't say I blame him.'

‘Is this likely to affect us all, Mrs Beecham, or just the immediate family?' asked Gordon.

Miss Vane sipped her tea, one finger neatly raised, and said nothing. I saw her reach one plump hand out for a fourth piece of toast and then, flushing, glancing sideways at me, pull it back, while I carefully pretended not to have noticed.

‘Well, obviously it will have repercussions for all of us.' Fiona beamed at us. ‘My husband and I have finally found a suitable house for us. It's an old mill house, with the original mill-wheel still there, and a millpond and about an acre of ground.'

‘It sounds awfully grand,' said Orlando. ‘How can we afford it?'

‘It's all down to Aunt.' Instinctively we raised our eyes to the ceiling, where the old lady could be heard shuffling about in her room, burning toast, spilling tea, dropping cutlery, enjoying her independence. Looking back, I can see that Fiona's brand of inattention was in fact the kindest sort of care. The fact that Aunt's teacups still needed washing after she'd washed them, that she occasionally left little patches of damp on her armchair cushions, that food sometimes spilled onto her jumpers, was immaterial. She still had an illusion of independence, she made her own meals, she lived autonomously.

‘What's Aunt done?'

‘She's put Glenfield up for sale, and is giving the proceeds to us, to buy the Mill House. She'll come with us, of course.'

‘And Ava, and Bella?'

‘Yes. For as long as they want it, their home is with us.'

We looked at each other glumly. ‘I don't know,' said Callum. ‘Have you really thought about this, Mum?'

‘Of course I have.'

‘More to the point,' said Orlando. ‘Is this definite?'

‘More or less . . .' Fiona's face grew vague. ‘Yes, I'm sure it is.'

Across the table, Orlando raised his striped eyebrows at me.

‘What exactly do we gain from the move?' Callum asked.

‘We gain a lovely home – a home of our very own at last. We gain proximity to one of the most beautiful university cities in the world.'

‘You mean Cambridge?' said Bertram, who was a King's College man.

‘You know perfectly well, Mr Yelland, that I mean Oxford.' Fiona beamed some more. ‘And best of all, it means we shall have Daddy at home, at last.'

‘And do I take it,' asked Miss Vane delicately, pressing a table napkin to her mouth, ‘that we . . .' she indicated herself, Gordon and Bertram, ‘. . . shall be staying here?'

‘I'm not going to turf you out into the street,' said Fiona. ‘We shan't move until after the children have gone back to school. That should give you plenty of time to find a place to your liking.'

‘I may use this chance to chuck up the whole filthy teaching business,' said Yelland. ‘See it as a heaven-sent opportunity to do what I should have been doing for years. Move back to London, get serious about painting, and be damned to my father and all his works.' He folded his napkin and tucked it inside the bone ring with his initials in silver relief. ‘This is excellent news, Mrs Beecham.'

‘I'm so glad you think so.'

Yelland rubbed his hands together. ‘I shall give my notice in immediately. Work until next half-term. Then hey ho, it's the bright lights for me.'

‘What about you, Miss Vane? I do hope this won't inconvenience you too much.'

‘As a matter of fact, it won't. A friend – a colleague at the school – asked me recently if I was interested in rooming together somewhere. I said I wasn't but the offer's still open, because she mentioned it yesterday. And all in all, it might be . . .' She looked round at us, her face slightly pink.

Fiona's face softened. ‘And you, Gordon? Will you be able to find somewhere?'

‘I'm sure it won't be difficult, Mrs Beecham. I'll be sorry to leave all of you, of course . . .' His eyes wandered vaguely across my brothers. ‘. . . but we must always be aware of fresh woods and pastures new, mustn't we?'

‘Fields,' said Orlando.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘It's fields, not woods.'

‘Wood or field, what the hell does it matter, you cheeky little bugger,' snapped Yelland. ‘Sorry, Mrs B, but that child would try the patience of a saint.'

‘Not that you'd know much about sainthood,' said Orlando, so low that only Bertram and I heard him.

‘That's quite enough from all of you,' said Fiona. ‘Now, this may be the holidays, but I, for one, have work to do.'

‘I read your last story while I was in the hairdressers,' said Miss Vane hastily. ‘It was really awfully good.'

‘Thank you so much. Which one was it?'

‘Something to do with a lonely little boy befriending an old lady . . . or was it an old man? I'm sorry, I can't remember. But I know it was lovely.'

‘Good. Now, everybody, there's one last thing.'

We stopped pushing back our chairs to listen.

‘In view of the coming changes, and since it will coincide nicely with Alice's birthday, I thought we might have a party before the end of the holidays. Even a dance. What do you say?'

‘Great idea,' said Callum.

‘Do you mean here?' asked Ava.

‘We can push back the furniture in the drawing room, roll up the carpets. There's plenty of room. Have food set out in here. A barrel of beer, cider, soft drinks.' Her eyes softened. I knew that instead of plastic mugs and glasses from Woolworths, paper plates and picnic forks, she envisioned porcelain and silver, crystal goblets filled with the finest wine, groaning trenchers featuring roast birds, honey-glazed hams studded with cloves, sides of beef, dishes crowded with creamy mashed potatoes, tender vegetables, buttered peas, a swan carved from ice, the elaborately-decorated sort of dishes in the illustrated Mrs Beeton which was kept on the bottom shelf of the drawing-room bookcases.

‘Sounds terrific, Mum.'

‘Absolutely splendid. Are you talking about black tie?'

‘Don't be silly, Mr Yelland. Do we look like black tie people? Though of course, before the war . . .' She looked pensive for a moment. ‘Oh well . . .'

‘Who's going to come to this party?' asked Callum.

‘The rest of the family, for a start. I want you to think of all the people we might want to invite, and we'll write out invitations this evening and you two . . .' she nodded at Orlando and me, ‘. . . can deliver the local ones on your bikes.'

How did I feel about the prospect of leaving Glenfield? How did Orlando feel? When I asked him, he raised his zebra eyebrows. ‘Hmmm. I don't know, really. Half of me thinks it exciting. I don't like change, and this has been our home for a long time. But it'd be marvellous to be close to Oxford, all that music, and theatre and stuff. And C. S. Lewis lives there too . . .'

‘Daddy actually knows him.'

‘. . . so we might even get to meet him!'

‘And Mr Tolkien,' I said. ‘Gosh, he said I must come to tea with him next time I was in Oxford.'

‘So all in all,' said Orlando, ‘I think we're quite pleased, aren't we?' He pulled at his zebra hair. ‘If it ever happens, that is.'

‘You think it might not?'

‘Don't you?'

‘Hmm . . .' So many of Fiona's plans faltered at the last fence. ‘If it does, will we be sad to leave the boys, Julian and the rest of them?'

‘Not as much as we might have been.'

I didn't even mention Nicola, knowing his views, but in spite of everything, I would be sorry to say goodbye to her. She was bad, even wicked, but she was exciting, vital, a breath of slightly fetid air blowing through our hitherto staid lives. But it would also be a relief to say goodbye to her. I could throw away the shoplifted stuff, I needn't worry about her being mean to Orlando or—

‘Oh!' I said. ‘But I wouldn't be able to have lessons with Mr Elias any more.'

‘There are other piano teachers.'

‘But not any other Mr Eliases.'

Orlando looked at me oddly. ‘Who are we going to ask to your party?'

I didn't want Nicola to come, but Fiona had other ideas. ‘You can't leave the girl out,' she declared, when I showed her my list. ‘It would be unkind not to invite her.'

‘I don't really want her to come.'

‘Why not?'

‘She's . . .' Dangerous, was what I wanted to say, but if I did, I knew my mother would want to know what I meant. And I wasn't prepared to mention the shoplifting, or Bertram Yelland. Or the way she had tried to damage Sasha Elias. ‘. . . not really my sort,' I muttered.

‘Really? I wouldn't have guessed.' Fiona's glance was too shrewd for comfort. ‘I like her mother well enough, but I agree the girl is a bit of a menace. Still, since you insisted on being around her so much this holidays, you can't very well leave her out, so you'll just have to put up with it. Obviously we'll invite Louise Stone, and isn't there a brother? Maybe they'll be able to keep some kind of a check on her.'

‘Check?'

‘This is your party and I'm not prepared to accept any . . .' My mother wasn't usually at such a sustained loss for words.

‘Any what?'

‘Anything untoward.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘Never mind.'

‘If she comes, I shan't,' I said sulkily.

‘Don't be silly, darling.'

‘I mean it!'

But both of us knew that I didn't. Parties were a rare enough event in our lives; a party in our own house was unheard of. We were such a large group that we rarely needed further company. Julian, Nicola and the rest spent time in our house, as we did in theirs, but for the most part, we remained self-sufficient, disconnected from the world beyond our own. Even when my father was home from Oxford, we never had people to dinner. Occasionally one of his undergraduates would show up, taking a detour from cycling round Kent or visiting Canterbury Cathedral. Sometimes my big brothers would bring home a friend from university or medical school, and very occasionally my mother would suggest I might like to invite a girl from school down for part of the holidays. The girl was always Erin Carpenter, an American from Boston. She spelled a kind of freedom – one quite different from Nicola's wildness. I breathed more deeply when I was with Erin, saw the world in brighter colours, sensed wider horizons spreading below the edge of my own sea-encompassed limits.

‘Wow!' she would say. ‘Great!', ‘Ok
aaaa
y!', the second syllable floating endlessly from her wide mouth, giving it quite a different sound from the word we had been forbidden to use. Mediated through Erin, America with its spacious skies, its purple mountains, seemed boundless, munificent, a land of plenty.

But Erin was in California, staying with her divorced father, and wouldn't be able to come. A disappointment, especially since Fiona had promised that, as the party was partly to celebrate my birthday, I could have a new dress.

‘Can it be pink?' I said.

‘Pink?'

‘Oh,
please
. . .'

‘I'll see if I have something by me.' This was a good start: Fiona nearly always had something by her.

And indeed, a few days later, she showed me a length of pink silk brocade. ‘What do you think, darling? I saved it from before the war,' she said. ‘Isn't it a beautiful colour?'

‘Pink,' I breathed.

‘Not pink, Old Rose.'

Old Rose. My mother's words transformed the cloth into something magical, straight from the middle of a fairy-tale forest full of white harts and questing beasts, where a sleeping princess lay in a golden castle deep at its crimson heart.

‘And Ava's going to make it into a dress for you.'

‘It's all very well,' grumbled ever-cheerful Ava. ‘Dressmaking indeed, with all I have to do, where I'm going to find the time I really don't know.' But somewhere she must have found it for every evening I could hear the old Singer sewing machine whirring behind the closed door of the room she shared with Bella. I imagined her snatching handfuls of time from a bubbling cauldron of the stuff, spooning seconds from the brew, dipping in a ladle to measure out minutes, dragging hours towards her across the surface and stacking them beside her sewing table like pink clouds. I saw time, slippery as soap, glisten between her fingers.