Two Loves (7 page)

‘You see, I wasn't educated for anything,' Erica continued. ‘Girls weren't in my day. I stayed on at school, a boarding school in Kent, until I was eighteen, then went abroad for ten years. It was the thing to do in those days. You got a job as companion to some American woman who was travelling to South America or India, and hoped to pick up a rich admirer while you were at it.'

‘I bet you did, too.'

‘Not the right sort, though. I think I was always seen as a girlfriend or mistress rather than a wife. I don't think I had that steely determination that other women seemed to have, that insistence on the wedding ring. Oh, I had a good time with one or two wonderfully handsome young men, but didn't manage to get myself a husband.'

‘You were too beautiful. Men are easily frightened.'

Erica smiled. Such blatant flattery! She liked Rosamund.

‘How did you meet Anthony? He wasn't the type you'd come across abroad.'

‘I came home because my mother was ill. She died in a few months and left me this flat and some money which gave me the opportunity to change my lifestyle. It was time for change.'

Rosamund looked round the room with added interest. She hadn't realised that this was the flat that Anthony had visited so often. She felt rather as though she were spying on him. It was easy to imagine him here.

‘Not enough money, of course,' Erica continued, ‘but just sufficient to live on with some other odds and ends. Never had a proper job. Wasn't trained for anything.'

‘You used to cook for parties, Anthony said.'

‘Yes, I did for a time. What else did he tell you about me?'

‘That you posed for several well-known artists.'

‘That didn't last long. Oh, I did a bit of everything over the years, took parties of tourists round London and Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon, translated from Italian for publishers and film companies; I'd lived in Italy for several years. That's how I got to know Anthony. He'd seen my advertisement – in the
Statesman
I think it was, and brought along some Italian poems for me to translate.'

‘He was already married to Molly at that time?'

‘Yes. His first wife had died, as you probably know, and he'd married again almost immediately.'

‘Did you ever meet Molly?'

‘No. Did you?'

‘No. Of course I shall have to if I decide to go ahead with my book.'

‘Tell me what she's like, won't you?'

‘You must know what she's like.'

‘No. You can never trust a man when he's talking about his wife; always that mixture of slavish devotion and implacable hatred. She can't be as bad as I imagined her … Shall we have some tea?'

‘Lovely. I brought some pastries from the delicatessen by the tube.'

‘Oh, darling, they're hideously expensive! What a treat though.'

Erica sat back, the thought of tea quite forgotten. ‘The poems are all I have left to sell,' she said.

‘They're wonderful poems. You should be very proud to have inspired them. Anthony showed them to me a few weeks before he died. He asked me not to have them published for twenty years, but I'm sure he wouldn't want you to be short of money.'

‘You can't be rich yourself.'

‘No, but I'm not desperate … Shall I make the tea?'

‘That would be very kind. Are you sure you don't mind? The kitchen is an unholy mess, I'm afraid.'

‘My mother says that. “What an unholy mess!” But only about my kitchen, not hers.'

*   *   *

Even after the warning, Rosamund was appalled by Erica's kitchen, not the untidiness, but the filth. She'd already realised that Erica was at least ten years older than she admitted to, she was nearer eighty than seventy, almost eighty, and needing someone's care. Still the remains of beauty, the deep-set eyes, the cheekbones and the wonderful jawline, but an old woman and unable to cope on her own. The sink and the working surfaces were squalid, the only tea she had was the cheapest variety, the milk in the grimy fridge old, not quite sour, but full of blue lumps, a smell of rotting swede coming from somewhere. She washed some cups and saucers, a milk jug and a plate for the pastries and carried in the tray.

Erica was leaning back in her chair, her eyes shut. ‘Oh,' she said, waking with a jolt. ‘It's you, Stevie.'

‘No, it's Rosamund. Rosamund Gilchrist.'

‘Of course it is. Such delicious cakes!'

‘Who is Stevie?'

‘Did I say Stevie? Oh dear: She was a maid my mother had in the old days. I haven't thought of her for years.'

The room was getting dark, shadows of the plane trees outside the window patterning the dark red carpet and the heavy furniture. Rather nice furniture, Rosamund thought, solid Edwardian mahogany, a faint smell of potpourri coming from somewhere, a marble fireplace fitted with a gas fire.

‘Anthony would have liked this room,' she said. She could imagine him sitting in the straight-backed wing chair, spreading a napkin over his thin knees, cutting the pastry very precisely, leaning forward to avoid making crumbs, looking at the young Erica as he'd later looked at her. ‘Was he a very ardent lover?' she asked.

‘I'm far too old to remember,' Erica said, but looking as though she remembered very well, ‘but his letters seem to suggest that he was fairly happy in my company.'

‘I bet he was.'

‘But not so happy that he was prepared to leave his wife – who didn't make him at all happy, or so he said. Men have a strange sense of reality.'

‘He had a family.'

‘Yes, he had a family. And the family won. And I have no children and no grandchildren … I'd have enjoyed grandchildren, I think.'

Rosamund looked at her spearing the last piece of éclair, raising it to her mouth and chewing robustly. ‘That abortion you had made a tremendous impact on Anthony,' she said. ‘He told me he'd never been so unhappy as he was then.'

Erica raised her hand to steady her trembling mouth, while in her other hand her fork clattered against her plate. ‘He shouldn't have told you about the abortion,' she said. ‘He promised he'd never mention that to a soul.'

‘He was very old when he told me. He'd obviously forgotten.'

‘I won't mention that in my book and I hope you won't.'

There was a silence during which they looked hard at each other.

‘Of course I won't,' Rosamund said.

‘It upset him, you think?'

‘It devastated him. He said you very nearly died. The poem called
The Reckoning
was written about it. You must have known.'

‘I suppose I did. But you know, I hardly saw him after that. I went to Provence for a short holiday – which he paid for – and there I met Roger Kingsley whom I married the following year.'

‘I didn't know you'd got married. Anthony never mentioned that. It hurt him too much, I suppose.'

‘I went to America with Roger and lived there until his death three years later. I never saw Anthony again.'

‘Did your husband know about the abortion?'

‘Of course not. Nobody knew about it. Abortion was highly illegal in those days. Roger would certainly not have married me if he'd known about it.'

‘That's why Anthony wouldn't hear of my having an abortion – because of the agony you and he had gone through. So it's you I have to thank for Joss, I suppose. My son, Joshua.'

‘You weren't married, then, when he was conceived?'

‘No. We'd never considered it. No, Anthony was just someone I visited in the holidays. I was teaching in Liverpool and of course used to love being able to visit the famous poet. He was always so pleased to see me, took me out to expensive restaurants, cooked for me, tried to educate me. But marriage was the last thing either of us had thought of.'

For a while they were both caught up in memories, their eyes losing focus.

‘My inside was all messed up. Though it was done privately of course and cost plenty,' Erica said, her voice harsh.

‘He was nearly fifty years older than me, almost half a century older. If he were alive now he'd be eighty-four.'

‘I meant nothing to him.'

‘Nonsense. He talked a great deal about you. He loved you. He never talked of anyone else.'

‘He forgot about me. I wrote to tell him about Roger, about the apartment we had in New York, hoping he might visit us – he liked America – but never got a word in reply.'

‘He was probably too hurt,' Rosamund said. ‘He'd thought you'd always be there for him. He was like that, wasn't he? A tremendous egoist. I'm not trying to make excuses for him, but he must have had a terrible shock … Served him right, of course. He should have had the guts to leave Molly.'

‘When I got back from America, he had someone else.'

‘You were the only one he talked to me about.'

‘She worked for the BBC. Beth Stallworthy. He was divorced by this time so I assumed they'd get married, but the next thing I heard, she'd married someone else and he'd left London.'

‘What about you? Were you with someone else by this time?'

‘Perhaps so. Yes, I was usually with someone else. It was usually better to be with someone else, I found. Being alone isn't much fun. What about you?'

‘I'm on my own. You're right, not much fun.'

‘But you're an artist. You have your own resources.'

Rosamund sighed. ‘I haven't enough talent or energy to call myself an artist. I had enough money to indulge myself for a while, that's all. Now I've got to get cracking on something else. So I suppose I'm going to have a shot at writing this book.'

‘Are we both going to betray him, then?'

Rosamund looked at the old woman for a few moments, not knowing how to reply. ‘Anthony's a great poet,' she said at last. ‘His reputation is assured.' She got to her feet. ‘Would you like me to make another pot of tea? Or shall I wash up now? My father and my stepmother are taking me to the theatre tonight, so I can't stay long.'

‘I really need money,' Erica said. ‘Everything comes down to money in the end, doesn't it? I want to spend next winter in a luxury hotel in Madeira or Florida. For five or six days last February I was too cold to get out of bed.'

Chapter Six

Rosamund's father, Paul Harcourt, had been an up-and-coming solicitor when her mother had married him. According to her, though, he'd been bad-tempered and moody through all the years they'd been together, forever threatening to give up his law practice to become an actor. Marian had considered this a childish self-indulgence and had always vowed to leave him if he did, adamant that she didn't intend to give up her home and security.

When Paul's father, himself a successful solicitor, had died, leaving Paul most of his money, he'd been able to support Marian and Rosamund in Surrey as well as pay for his training at drama school. During those years he'd spent more and more time at his flat in London – Rosamund had been only seven or eight when he'd first left – and gradually the rift between him and Marian had ended in divorce.

He'd never become a very successful actor, though his English good looks ensured him a certain amount of television work; the small part of the father in situation comedy being his most usual role, and as far as Rosamund could judge, he was still as impatient and bad-tempered as ever. But she supposed he was now less frustrated, able to feel that his big chance – the important lead part that was going to make his name – might finally come his way.

Rosamund realised that Dora was a much more suitable partner for him than her mother could ever have been; Dora was a busy careerwoman who idolised him but without taking him too seriously.

Rosamund arrived twenty minutes late at the restaurant where they were to have a pre-theatre supper. She'd felt in need of fresh air and a long walk after the sadness of her afternoon with Erica; the tragedy of her lonely old age. Dora and her father were already halfway through their meal. ‘I knew you wouldn't want to find your father in a bad mood,' Dora said, kissing her. ‘I've ordered lasagna for you. I hope that's all right.'

‘Perfect,' Rosamund said. ‘How lovely to see you. And you,' she added, smiling at her father who just managed to smile back. ‘Don't worry,' she told him, ‘I'm a very fast eater.'

‘How beautiful you look,' Dora said. ‘She's so lucky to have your looks, Paul, isn't she?'

Her father looked at her critically, so that she was immediately aware of her three-year-old linen suit, bought in a sale to please her mother, a good label but a poor fit and not really her colour. She ate fast and had soon caught up with them.

‘Gâteau? Fruit? Cheese and biscuits?' Dora enquired.

‘Cheese and biscuits,' Rosamund said rather sadly. ‘I had an éclair for tea.'

‘We'll all have the strawberry gâteau,' Dora told the waiter, ‘and coffee and the bill.'

Dora was small with cropped black hair shot through with grey in a most attractive way. Brindled, Rosamund thought. Her mouth and her eyes were large, her face freckled; a lovely, ugly face like an intelligent pug. Exquisitely dressed, not in a careful, studied way like her mother – everything co-ordinated and of the best possible quality – but in strange exotic clothes that would probably have looked appalling on anyone else.

The three of them ate their gâteau feeling pleased with one another.

They saw a musical comedy, so undemanding that Rosamund could follow it while giving most of her attention to her afternoon with Erica, the way she'd felt so close to her.

After the play was over they went backstage to see one of the actors whom her father knew, all of them congratulating him warmly on his performance, though he'd only been on stage for five minutes, her father ridiculously over-indulgent, it seemed to her, though the actor seemed to take it as no more than his due.