The Lost Life (5 page)

It is then as Miss Hale watches, helpless, that her special friend, his body folding like a summer deckchair, falls to his knees in front of his cap, in front of the hole in the earth and the glowing pink and white petals of the timeless garden, and screams out as if having been physically hit. ‘I will never be free of this woman!’ And as he does this, he looks in the direction of the driveway where the car has just so hastily departed, then to the hole. Catherine can’t help but observe there’s not only despair in this outburst but violence as well. A capacity for violence, for white-tempered, mad violence, has taken over the face and body of Miss Hale’s special friend. And not just a capacity for loud violence but the kind of violent impulse that can cause people to explode and shout the most loathsome things (to ‘this woman’ for a start). For there is that kind of violence now in his countenance, one that, Catherine thinks, in some Jekyll-and-Hyde manner, disfigures him. She would never have thought to see such a look on the face of Miss Hale’s special friend, whose public image she knows from newspapers and books, and which has always looked back at her, and all readers,
with the calm, serene stare of the impersonal poet, to whom outbursts of inferior emotions are completely foreign. Human, but not like the rest of us are human. Endlessly patient. A stare that understands it all, and is above it all. And this is the image she
wants
to believe. And she is as much shocked by this violent outburst as she is by his sobs and the heaving of his body as he looks up to Miss Hale, who now kneels and takes his hands and holds them in hers, occasionally patting them and subduing him, until the violence is gone from his eyes and he is her special friend once more. When he is calmed, when they are done, Miss Hale rises, and, still holding his hands, brings him to his feet. He picks up his cap, slaps his thigh with it, and together they leave, silently, the laughter, the lightness, all gone, down the path that leads to the drained pools of the estate and the wooded section beyond that will eventually take them back to the gate she had so recently pronounced the perfect place from which to watch the sun set.

When the scene settles, for it is as though some cold, dark wind has blown in across the estate and over the rose garden, Catherine and Daniel emerge, warily, from the bushes for a second time. The screech of motor-car tyres has long disappeared, the sounds of the outburst have faded, and all is quiet again. But the sun goes behind a cloud, the shadows darken, and the storybook glow has left the garden. Or perhaps the story has changed. Catherine has the urge to shiver and feels that if she was to turn towards the house now she might catch a glimpse of a couple of ghostly figures passing across the wide windows. And this feeling that something nasty has been let loose, that something nasty might await them if they hang about too long, comes over her and doesn’t leave. Nor does the impulse to shiver, as one may when walking over the ground where some distant but horrible crime was committed years, even centuries, before. Yes, it is still a storybook garden, but the story has changed and Catherine feels no desire to turn and look upon it.

It is then, in utter bafflement, that she swings around to Daniel standing beside her in the eerie stillness. ‘What have you done?’

Sobered by what they have seen and heard, the
beery look gone from his eyes, he stands on the path in front of her, still clutching the tin, his eyes on the disturbed ground, as if he is just as mystified by his impulse to steal the tin as she is. ‘I did it for you.’

‘For me?’

‘I thought you’d like it.’

‘It’s not a peach, Daniel. It’s not a flower.’

‘I thought we could have a look, and put it back. No harm.’

‘Well, we can’t now.’

‘How was I to know they’d come back?’

‘What, what, Daniel, are we going to do with it now?’

They then look back to the hole in the ground, but without speaking know it is pointless returning the tin to the earth now.

She eyes him up and down. ‘You’re meant to be the grown-up.’

‘It was a lark. Only a lark.’

She raises her eyebrows, looks away, then back to him. ‘Give it to me. Just give it to me.’

Her hand is outstretched and he places the tin in it. And quickly, like someone receiving stolen goods, she draws her hand back and whips the thing into her pocket.

Their packs over their shoulders, they leave the rose garden without looking back.

‘What are you going to do with it?’ he asks, as they turn at the bottom of the path, the pools that they’d come for, hoping they would be full, in front of them.

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice is flat. The friskiness has gone out of her; the pools, the excuse to slip into their togs and get a good look at each other, to follow their ardent ways, seem, sadly, to belong to another place as well as another time. The air of the prankster has left his manner too. Catherine, seeing the sad grumpiness in his eyes, inwardly notes that the cows on the walk back to the town would be best advised to leave this intruder alone.

Shaking her head slowly, and still wondering what on earth to do with the small tobacco tin in her dress pocket, she nonetheless takes his hand and gives it a good shake as they stroll past the drained circular pool and enter the dark, thickly wooded section of the estate leading back to the gate on what already seems like another distant day, and the two of them another faintly distant couple.

A wind stirs the trees, and birds, invisible until now, lift from their perches and take to the air, full of
sound and song. It is an orchestral burst of birds and music. And somewhere there is a rush of strings, jabbing, insistent, brisk, hurtling towards some emphatic, final note, signifying the end of the outing, as much as the end of a movement in a piece of music.

When Catherine
arrives the next morning at the house on the high street where Miss Hale is staying, it is Miss Hale herself (not her aunt or uncle, who are presumably out and about already) who opens the door and guides her into the drawing room. She is surprised by the visit for it is not a working day for Catherine. Not that Miss Hale says any of this, but her expression shows surprise when she opens the door. But it isn’t the surprise on her face that shocks Catherine, it is Miss Hale’s face itself: the transformation that has taken place between yesterday and today. Her eyes are red and puffed. Her movements are nervy, even twitchy, her bearing fragile. She has either slept badly or has been crying recently. Or both. And as Miss Hale moves to the window overlooking the back garden of the property, Catherine concludes that only the
combination of crying and a sleepless night could do this. For Miss Hale’s face is always poised, the face of someone always in control of her circumstances, or, at least, someone who will decide her own course of action should circumstances ever become uncertain or difficult. She is that kind of woman. She has never given the impression that she is someone who could be rocked by life. But this morning the poise is gone and the control seems fragile.

Catherine, too, has spent a restless night, tossing and turning, deciding what to do with the tin, the prize that Daniel so foolishly gave her and that she would dearly love to give back, if only she could find a way.

The whole of the previous night had been given over (she can barely remember sleeping at all) to the task of finding a way. She contemplated some half-baked story about wandering to the estate and coming across a disturbed patch in the rose garden, obviously dug up by some local animal, and finding not a bone but a dirt-covered tin nearby, with this odd collection of little knick-knacks inside. Would Miss Hale like to see? And what do we make of that? Something even written on a piece of paper (which she hasn’t read). Odd. And in that way Catherine could return the tin
to its rightful owners and her conscience would be clear. But it was just too far-fetched. It didn’t convince Catherine, and it certainly wouldn’t convince Miss Hale. Besides, it would require a performance, and a very good one, just to get away with it — to even hope of getting past Miss Hale. And Catherine had never thought of herself as a performer, especially given that Miss Hale was a drama teacher who would immediately see that Catherine was acting, and very badly. Catherine, for better or worse, is incapable of lying. It would be bound to show, and she would be a nervous wreck if she ever attempted to get away with a stunt like that.

In the end the only option that rang true, was the truth itself. She would simply bite the bullet, confess, and tell Miss Hale exactly what had happened. How it had been beyond her control. How it had just been a prank. How her friend, who is good but impulsive, is known for his silly skylarking. And how no harm had been intended. She would get it all off her chest and even if she lost the friendship of Miss Hale in the process (and ceased to be one of her girls), her conscience would at least be clear and she’d be able to sleep again. And, as an offering (to show her good intentions), she’d also take with her
the poems of Miss Hale’s special friend, for him to sign if he pleased.

After a long and difficult night, Catherine had been resolved to get the thing over and done with as soon as possible. And with this in mind, she’d left home right after breakfast, walked up the high street, past the school at which her mother taught, and had come straight to Miss Hale before she set about whatever she had planned for the day (Catherine had not wanted to miss her and have to spend the rest of the day in a wretched state, waiting to unload her guilt). At least, she had been resolved until Miss Hale opened the door and Catherine saw her face. From the moment she looked at her, Catherine knew something was dreadfully wrong and that her timing couldn’t be worse. Miss Hale was rocked, Catherine was rocked, and her resolve was shattered.

Now, Miss Hale is standing by the window, gazing out over the three-tiered garden but barely taking it in, and Catherine is frantically trying to think of a reason to justify her visit. And it is then that she remembers the book. She inwardly sighs, giving thanks for having brought it with her, for just as she remembers the book, Miss Hale turns from
the view and stares at her, almost vacantly. ‘What is it, Catherine?’

Just as Catherine’s heart went out to her in the rose garden, so Catherine’s heart goes out to her now. As much as she had willed her on to a happy ending, as much as she may have pleaded with whatever forces may have been gazing down upon the scene that nothing, nothing, go wrong, something has clearly gone wrong and Catherine is the cause of it. And all she has to do is simply reach into her pocket, reveal the tin, tell her tale, and take her punishment. That is it; that is all. Over in a minute, and surely it couldn’t be as bad as she imagines. Probably a source of blessed relief for them both. Catherine could sleep again, and Miss Hale could stop crying. And so, when Miss Hale asks of her ‘What is it, Catherine?’, Catherine lowers her hands into both dress pockets, the one containing the small tin, the other the book, and weighs them up.

Catherine isn’t sure just how long it has been since Miss Hale asked the question, but her face is becoming increasingly puzzled the more she stares at Catherine, whose answer is not forthcoming. In fact, Catherine is sure that the puzzled look on her face is slowly turning to suspicion, for the longer
the silence goes on, the odder it becomes. And so, anxious at being found out, as apart from confessing, she pulls the book from her pocket and reveals it. This she says, without speaking, is the reason for her visit. And as she does, Miss Hale’s face lightens, and the trace of a smile falls across it. This should uplift Catherine too, this should lighten her load. But it doesn’t. She knows, even now, that this is one of those decisions (and it doesn’t matter how old you are because you never forgive yourself) that will always have the power to haunt her, one of those moments when life devises a test, and we fail. This is just such a moment. And so when Miss Hale’s face lightens, with the trace of a smile, she would dearly love to share in her relief, but she can’t because she could have brought her so much more.

‘Please,’ Catherine says, holding up the book, ‘could your friend sign this?’

It is a well-known edition, famous in literary circles, a standard edition that is instantly recognisable as the works of Mr Eliot. Miss Hale eyes it briefly, then looks at Catherine. ‘He’s gone.’

Of course. She knew as much. As soon as she saw Miss Hale’s face, she said to herself, ‘He’s gone.’

‘Oh…’ and Catherine is aware of leaving a considerable pause before continuing. ‘Will he be back?’

‘Possibly,’ Miss Hale answers vaguely, lost in sombre thoughts, then shakes herself free of them. ‘He may be back,’ she adds, correcting her vagueness, ‘but not just yet.’ As soon as Miss Hale says this, her eyes go back to the view, and her tone, her whole manner, suggests that, yes, he may possibly be back but he will not be the same. Nor will
it
be the same. Whatever the summer may have regained is now lost.

A ray of autumn sun touches Miss Hale’s hair and she raises her left hand and begins to play with it, framed by the window, lit by the sun. She says nothing; the summer is ruined. Then she drops her right hand to her side, possibly a gesture of hopelessness, but almost, it seems to Catherine, as if having flung some object to the ground like an actor in a silent movie. Then she tosses Catherine a look of … reproach. Yes, that’s it. There is reproach in her eyes and it is almost as if, in Catherine’s mind, her guilt has become transparent, and Miss Hale now knows that Catherine’s visit is a sham and that she is, in some way, the cause of all this. Even if she doesn’t know how, the shifty, guilty look in Catherine’s eyes
(which Catherine is sure is there for Miss Hale to see — a window on to her duplicitous soul) tells Miss Hale that Catherine is at the bottom of all this and she was a fool to even consider her worthy enough to be one of her girls. But the accusation in Miss Hale’s eyes fades, and she observes Catherine once more, with curiosity this time. ‘You like the poems?’

‘I love the poems.’

Here Miss Hale pauses again, her hands once more in her hair, and ponders the girl in front of her, as if to say, you are lucky, my dear, you are most fortunate that it is only the poems you love. ‘Why?’

This is a different Miss Hale. The question is almost blunt. And Miss Hale is not a blunt person. But she has just asked a question with the sudden bluntness that people use when they are really saying, I liked you once but I’m really not sure I like you any more, so let’s drop the niceties. And while Catherine is contemplating this, she is also formulating an answer to the question, so bluntly put. ‘Because when I read them I feel I understand them, and nobody else does. Silly, of course.’

Miss Hale ignores the concession to silliness. ‘You feel that they are
your
poems?’

‘Yes.’

‘Written for you?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Has anybody ever written a poem for you?’

‘No.’

‘Not even your young friend?’ and here Miss Hale smiles and inclines her head slightly as if to say, yes, I have noticed. I have seen you about the town with your friend. I miss nothing.

‘No, he brings me things.’

‘How nice,’ and it is said without irony, implying that the times she has seen them about the town she has liked what she has seen.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘What things?’

‘Fruit. Flowers. Little things.’ And here Catherine once more fingers the tin in her dress pocket and looks anywhere but into Miss Hale’s eyes.

She does not reply, but there is a softening of Miss Hale’s features, as if, inwardly, she is deciding that she likes this girl, this young woman, this Catherine, after all. And in a moment of clarity, Catherine is telling herself that Miss Hale never suspected her of anything. That was just Catherine’s guilt. Miss Hale has simply been rocked by certain
difficult events, that is all, and she is currently not herself. And Catherine should not take it personally. All the same, she is beginning to see that there are undiscovered sides to Miss Hale, and that there could be a certain hardness, even calculation, beneath all the grace and the poise and the manners if you ever fell out of favour. An ability to turn, and quite suddenly, should she feel the need to.

It is while Catherine is contemplating all of this that Miss Hale scrutinises her as she would one of her girls. ‘How old are you, Catherine?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Ah,’ and she nods knowingly at the garden. ‘Eighteen.’

It is said with sadness, with tenderness, and with the faint suggestion, Catherine imagines, that just as her heart had gone out to Miss Hale in the rose garden the day before, Miss Hale’s heart is now going out to her and whatever fate may have in store for her.

‘I remember eighteen. I see it so clearly, even now. I know to the young it must seem impossible that someone of my years could ever have been eighteen, but I see it clearly.’

Catherine is on the verge of saying no, she doesn’t think that at all, but Miss Hale offers only the
slightest pause before going on — either out of the desire not to have her thoughts broken or the fear of Catherine’s silence. ‘I’m standing in a garden. There are flowers in my arms.’ Miss Hale’s eyes are fixed on the garden in front of her and her voice becomes dreamy, even distant, not so much, it seems to Catherine, in the way that people go when they’re slipping back into the past, but in the manner of an actor playing somebody slipping irresistibly back into the past. Someone playing a role. What is more, someone used to playing the role, as though that’s all they’ve got to hang on to now, like people who make up the past in a way it never was but who play the role so often they eventually come to believe it is true.

Miss Hale goes on to paint a vivid scene for Catherine. A garden, a long-ago garden. Miss Hale, eighteen, with flowers in her arms. And a young man, a handsome young man of whom great things are expected, is standing beside her. They have the garden to themselves. A party is in progress in the drawing room of the house behind them. Figures pass by the windows, laughter erupts. But the garden is still. Without turning from the view, Miss Hale tells Catherine that she remembers only happiness at this
particular moment, which is why she remembers the moment so clearly. It is the thrill of pure happiness she remembers, the kind of happiness that you can only have when you are eighteen, with everything in front of you and no conceivable impediments to your happy progress. She can, she says, remember no other moment of such pure happiness and concludes that she was never so happy in the whole of her life, before or after, as she was at that particular moment in that long-ago garden when she stood at the foot of the garden steps, with flowers in her arms, and the young man of whom great things were expected standing beside her. Then the young man, who until that moment had remained silent, who had been content to gaze upon her, spoke, and a shadow fell across the autumn garden (as it now conveniently did on the garden outside), across her happiness, and across her eighteen-year-old heart. He was going away, he told her. For a year, possibly more. He was going away to Europe to study. Either she did not know of this or she had pushed the knowledge of his departure aside. She reacted with surprise, no, with shock. And it was then, she tells Catherine, as the shadow of his going away fell across her happiness, that, in the manner of a reflex, she threw the flowers
to the ground and watched as they came to rest, motionless, on the lawn. And even now, Catherine watches as her arms fly out, flinging the phantom flowers to the ground all over again. At the same time, Miss Hale turns from the view and stares directly at Catherine, her eyes filled with … what? Catherine meets the look, a momentary one, but in that moment concludes that it is resentment that has filled Miss Hale’s eyes. A resentment that does not seem to be directed against any particular person, but a general resentment that such pure happiness could disappear so quickly, so easily, and that the world could let her down so casually.