The Memory of Lost Senses (24 page)

It was in fact Cora’s aunt who insisted she take up Mrs. Hillier’s invitation to join her house party at Lucca. And the doctor had already suggested that a change of environment would be good for her. He told Cora that her melancholia was due to nothing more than a sensitive disposition. And he suggested to her that another baby would set things right.

But how could there be another baby? Jack never touched her, had no desire to touch her. He was sometimes kind and affectionate, and he undoubtedly loved little Freddie, but he was not and never had been her lover. Their marriage had been arranged, hastily arranged. It was not what a marriage should be. And she told him so, in their increasingly frequent whispered arguments. He said, “But what more do you want? I’ve given you my name.”

She was—she had known from the start—simply the wrong sex for Jack’s tastes. And yet she was grateful to him, for though the marriage was a sham, a respectable sham, he had married her and given her son his name. Whilst Jack’s father remained in denial, oblivious to his daughter-in-law’s predicament, Cora’s aunt knew. “One can’t have everything,” she told Cora, alluding vaguely to her niece’s circumstances. “And you should consider yourself fortunate, very fortunate. You have a husband
and
a child you love.” A passionless life was, it seemed, the price to be paid for a youthful intoxication, the penalty for having loved outside convention.

When Cora spoke of the excursion to Lucca to her husband, he had been his usual distracted and dismissive self. “Yes, why not? You should go,” he said, without looking up from the
Giornale di Roma
.

There had been no mention of George when Mrs. Hillier first suggested the trip, though Cora had privately wondered if he would be there, if he would join the party. Two days before she was due to leave Rome, she discovered that George was to meet up with them at Florence and come on with them to Lucca.

It would be their first meeting in almost four years.

Chapter Twelve

She wishes he were dead, hopes he’ll catch the consumption or the cholera, or step out in front of a carriage and be trampled to death by horses. He calls her “my pretty” and she turns away. He says, “Don’t be like that now . . . come here.” And because she’s alone with him, she has to go to him and sit on his lap. “My pretty,” he says, stroking her hair . . .

The sun rose early over Temple Hill, breaking through a narrow gap of pale chintz, throwing a searchlight over Cora’s bed, her pillow, her face. She had had another difficult night of interrupted sleep and broken dreams and was exhausted. Now, the effort of another day—and within it another lifetime—seemed almost too much. For what would she remember this day? How many times would she be confronted and challenged by her own memory?

She lay still for some time, cogitating, deliberating, pushing away, reordering people and events, sequences and words. She was used to the heat, used to the light, but she was not, and never would be, used to the weight of years, or that unyielding inflexibility that had become so much a part of her body. Resistance, she thought, had made her like this, for she knew that the mind and body were inextricably linked, and that much—perhaps all—of the weight of her burden was due to her fight against it. And hadn’t it started when she was still young? Hadn’t it started with George? With that need to be someone unstained, without blemish, or past or future? But no, it was not right to blame him. Too easy, too easy, she thought.

The situation she found herself in was her fault and no one else’s. She had returned there knowing that she would perhaps be found. “A place where no one will find me . . .” she said out loud, and then closed her eyes. She had wanted to speak to Cecily about the letters, had wanted to tell her—and she had had the opportunity, after dinner, when Cecily freely admitted she had been
changed
by what she knew. But what did Cecily know? And how could she, Cora, tell her anything without knowing what, exactly, she knew? It had been a perplexing conversation. He was desperate, Cecily had said. Yes, of course he would be. But was it him? Was it really the farmer, John Abel, sending the letters, reminding her?

“It could be any one of them . . .”

She turned her face to the window. The light was quite different, not of the same quality as Italy. She could hear someone outside beneath her window, the sound of sweeping, whistling, and then song. And the light and the song, and the sudden and fleeting sensation of another time momentarily lifted her spirits. If she closed her eyes she could be back there in a split second. One of the benefits, the very few benefits, of old age was having that menu of moments: moments to return to and relive, over and over. This was control. And one had to control one’s memories, otherwise . . . otherwise they could run rampant, leading one to places and times best forgotten. But oh how they seemed to be running amok on her now. The way to do it, she thought, the way to stop all of this is to train the mind, restore one’s history.
I must take control and focus my mind . . . I must remember, I must forget
.

She had never been an early riser and there seemed little to rise for now. Ten o’clock was quite early enough to greet the day, take breakfast—always coffee and rolls—and plan, yes, plan what was to happen. But what was there to plan? What was there to happen? Lunch, and tea, and dinner, a walk about the garden, perhaps. Nothing more arduous. Accounts to be settled, bills to be paid, correspondence to be dealt with—and what would the post bring today?

She wondered what time it was, but the numbers on the clock were blurred. Was that one o’clock? No, Sylvia would have come in by now, come to check on her. Someone would, surely. They would not leave her there, sleeping, dozing, drifting. Perhaps she had been asleep for days, sailing through time. But it was rather nice, to be left alone, to not know the time, not know the day . . . not know.

Sylvia had said not to get up, said that she would see to things. She could remember that. Yes, she could remember that. Sylvia had helped her upstairs to her bedroom . . . But they had had words, harsh words, and it pained her now to think of them. Had she overreacted? Sylvia
had
been snooping, there was no doubt at all about that. She had seen her, holding the little envelope from Mrs. Chadwick up to the lamp. And later, when Sylvia had loitered at the end of her bed, guiltily, awkwardly, what was it she had said? Something about Edward?

“Edward,” she said, and sighed.

For a moment she could hear music, a distant serenade, swept over countries and rooftops and into her room. And she closed her eyes once more, drifting back to a wedding in Paris . . .

She can see George standing in a huddle at the other side of the room. He has not spoken to her and he does not look at her. She moves about the palatial room holding on to the arm of her new husband. She smiles, says hello, kisses people and takes hold of their hands. She turns to her husband and listens to him as he speaks. From time to time he places his hand over hers resting on his arm, and he says her name. But it’s not the same. Can never be the same. And yet, what was she expected to do?

“You’ve been dreaming,” Sylvia said, smiling at her.

The windows in Cora’s room were open wide, but the air was thick and hot, and when she tried to speak her words were syrupy and stuck in her mouth. She tried to move, tried to sit up. Sylvia quickly rose to her feet, leaned over her, adjusting the pillows behind her head. She said, “I’ve told Jack you’re not feeling quite yourself. He’s gone off out, said to give you his love, and tell you that he’ll see you later.”

She nodded, tried to smile and closed her eyes. She saw Jack and Cecily, and herself and George; he was there, he was not there; and Jack and he were one and the same. She felt a touch, a hand upon her forehead, and in her dream it was him pushing back her hair, stroking her brow. She heard herself say his name and then a female voice, “No, it’s me, dear.” But when she opened her eyes and glanced down, she fleetingly but clearly saw his hand resting upon her own. She saw the lines of his knuckles, his fingernails—the smudges of paint beneath; his gold rings glinting yellow and white, bright white, in the sunshine.

The female voice said, “But you do look a little better . . . more like yourself. And I’ve asked Mrs. Davey to bring up a tray. Just a scone and some tea, I said.”

She turned to Sylvia. “What time is it?”

“Half past three . . . and I know you abhor tea being served before four, but you must have something. You’ve missed breakfast and luncheon.”

She raised herself up, and as Sylvia pushed and pulled at the pillows behind her she wanted to say, “Please don’t . . . please let me be . . . I’d like to be on my own.” She watched Sylvia sit back down, saw her pick up her notebook, then make that kissing noise with her mouth and tap her pencil on the page. Here they come, she thought, more questions. She can’t leave it alone, can’t let me be.

Questions, once eagerly anticipated and enjoyed, now seemed relentless, intrusive. And she was certainly in no mood for them today. It felt too close, too raw. As though the intervening years had been peeled back and the past was there, in that room with her. As though everyone was in that room with her, standing about the bed, waiting . . . but what were they waiting for? She was not about to die. Not yet.

Then Sylvia spoke again. She asked if she could go over the details of a landscape, said it would help her describe the setting for a particular chapter in her novel
Lord of Nivernais
.

“I’ve gone back to it,” Sylvia said. “Seeing as we’re not making much headway on
your
book.”

“Aren’t they
all
my books?” Cora asked. “And anyway, you visited France enough times yourself.”

“No, no, not France, Lucca.”

Cora narrowed her eyes. “Lucca? You’ve gone to Lucca?”

“Yes,” Sylvia replied. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s where Harriett, my protagonist, and Armand—”

“I can’t believe you’ve gone to Lucca. Why Lucca? You could have gone anywhere, taken them anywhere. Why there?”

“Oh Cora, really,” Sylvia stammered, “it’s just a place . . . the place I’ve put them for their reconciliation. You see, Harriett is returning to Rome, and Armand is now back from the war. I wanted to—”

“But why Lucca? It’s not on the way anywhere, and which war? You never mentioned any war to me. And you know how I feel about Lucca.”

“Well, I suppose I could move them, place them in Siena, perhaps, but really, I wanted somewhere quiet. And it has to be Italy, you see, because . . .”

Cora did not hear any more. In a split second she had been thrown back half a century, to Lucca.

They had lain entwined as dawn broke through the shuttered window, casting golden stripes across their bodies. He said, “I never want to leave you.”

“But you will, you will . . . you have to.”

He had to . . .

Cora traveled by train to Florence. The party headed out on foot from the hotel for luncheon with George. But when the moment came, “Hello, George,” was all she could summon. He asked after her aunt, and Jack, and then he said, “And your boy? How is Freddie?”