A Pure Clear Light. Madeleine John St.

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СКАЧАТЬ Mary, Mother of God.

      ‘I was thinking, so long as you can’t come to France – is that really off, Simon? Definitely? – I was thinking, I might ask Lydia if she’d like to come with us.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Lydia. You know, Faraday. Lydia Faraday.’

      ‘Yes, I know who you mean. Lydia Faraday. What on earth do you want to ask Lydia Faraday for?’

      ‘Well, why ever not? Poor Lydia.’

      ‘Poor hell.’

      ‘Simon!’

      ‘Well, for God’s sake.’

      ‘Anyway, what’s it to do with you? You won’t be there.’

      ‘Oh, Flora.’ Simon sprawled back in his armchair and clutched his head. ‘Honestly,’ he said. ‘Lydia.’

      Flora, watching this performance, began to laugh.

      ‘What have you got against poor Lydia?’ she said. Simon let go of his head and sat up. He reached for the gin bottle and topped up his drink – Flora always made them too weak – and took a swallow.

      ‘In the first place,’ he said, ‘she isn’t poor. She’s probably got more than the rest of us put together. Jack was saying –’

      ‘Then he shouldn’t have been,’ said Flora severely. Jack Hunter, a solicitor, had done some work for Lydia a year or two back, when she had got into a tax muddle.

      ‘Don’t be priggish,’ said Simon. ‘The point is, Lydia likes to put it about that she’s on her uppers, but –’

      ‘That’s not true either,’ said Flora. ‘I never heard her putting it about that she was short of money.’

      ‘No, she doesn’t say so in so many words,’ said Simon. She’s not that obtuse. She just suggests it in a thousand tiny ways. I could practically throttle her sometimes. Who’s she trying to impress?’

      ‘Simon, what are you talking about?’ cried Flora, amidst her laughter. ‘Name me even one of these thousand tiny ways.’

      ‘Well, look at the way she dresses,’ said Simon, ‘for a start.’

      ‘Dresses?’

      ‘Yes, dresses.’

      ‘Fancy your noticing the way she dresses!’ Flora had stopped laughing, or even smiling. What could this mean?

      Simon scented the danger and rushed to avert it. ‘I wouldn’t notice,’ he said, ‘if she didn’t simply demand one’s attention every time you see her. Oh God. Those bits and pieces.’

      ‘I always think Lydia looks very nice,’ said Flora, whose own taste ran to French jeans and plain white T-shirts, and things from the Harvey Nick’s sales for more formal occasions; ‘for a woman of her age.’

      ‘Miaow!’ cried Simon, and they both laughed. One thing which cemented their relationship was that gin always put them in a good humour; so generally they drank some every evening.

      ‘And that’s another thing,’ said Simon.

      ‘What is?’ said Flora.

      ‘Well, her age. I mean, Lydia: it was one thing when one first knew her; fair enough; loose cogs – you expect them when they’re in their twenties, early thirties. Missed the first bus, but there’ll still be a few more; but now, ten years or so later – well: precious few buses. Probably none. Probably missed the last one. And there she still is loose-cogging around the scene, just getting in the way – it’s embarrassing.’

      Flora was appalled. ‘Well, really!’ she exclaimed. ‘How –’

      ‘And then she has to make a meal of it,’ said Simon, ‘with all those jumble-sale outfits. And that itty-bitty flat of hers. And she always wants a lift. She’s just so pointless.’

      ‘Mother of God,’ said Flora.

      ‘You what?’

      ‘Mother,’ said Flora. ‘Of God.’

      ‘What are you talking about?’

      ‘Honestly, Simon. If you could hear yourself. The cruelty. That poor woman. What has she ever done to you?’

      Simon had been recalled, unexpectedly, to sobriety. He considered the question. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘She just depresses me.’

      ‘Ah,’ said Flora. ‘Yes. I see. Yes. Make me another drink will you? There’s just time for another before we eat.’ She watched while Simon made the drink. Lydia was sometimes a bit of a downer, that was a fact; but she couldn’t quite tell why. Oh, Mother of God: pray for us sinners.

       5

      When Flora had got herself married, and then Claire, and then Louisa – well, it rather left Lydia out in the cold, one could say: not that she seemed to care. Well, to be sure, it was – then – early days yet: it was a bit early for caring. But still: they (and Alison Brooke, who had vanished to New York, and who therefore did not in the same way thereafter count) had all been friends together, and it was a bit tricky, insofar as they still were, to keep Lydia in the frame when she had no husband or other partner. It was not such a fag while she was still youngish, and attractive – ish! said Simon – but it got trickier by the year. And now she was forty-ish, and it required a certain breadth of vision even to pose the question of whether or not she was, still, attractive. Ish!

      ‘Attractive? Lydia? You must be joking!’ said Simon.

      ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Robert, husband to Louisa. ‘She’s not bad, is she?’

      ‘If you go for that style of thing,’ amended Alex, husband to Claire.

      ‘Lydia is beautiful,’ said little Thomas. ‘I love Lydia.’

      ‘Lydia has lovely clothes,’ said Nell. ‘She gets them from jumble sales. Can we go to a jumble sale, Mum?’

      ‘Lydia is pathetic,’ said Janey. ‘Please don’t ask her to come with us to France, Mum. She’ll ruin everything.’

      ‘How unkind you are,’ said Flora. ‘How do you mean, pathetic?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Janey. ‘She just is. She tries too hard.’ People often did, with Janey, for she had a critical mien, but it was not a bit of use; it was indeed the worst thing one could possibly do. Janey was one very tough young woman.

      Five years ago, when Thomas was a tiny baby, just home from the hospital, and Simon had had to go away on location for six weeks, Lydia had come to stay, because with Nell having been but four years old – although Janey was eight and reasonably self-sufficient – СКАЧАТЬ