A Pure Clear Light. Madeleine John St.

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      Simon was always in an illish temper when he got back from one of these away-assignments, little new baby or no little new baby – ‘See how much fatter he is since Daddy went away! Who’s my fat little boy? Who’s my little fatty? Who’s Mummy’s little darling! Who’s this? This is your Daddy – yes, Daddy – smile for Daddy!’

      Simon took the child and cuddled him, awkwardly at first and then with more aplomb, and said, over the baby’s downy head, ‘But really, Flora, she doesn’t need to stay here any longer, does she, now that I’m back? I’d have thought she’d have been off out of the place by the time I fetched up – not installed in that kitchen with the girls making meringues as if she bloody lived here. When does she mean to go?’

      The baby was becoming restless and Flora took him back. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘She’ll go soon, I expect. As soon as she gets the vibe you’re giving out. Just carry on, Simon. Make her feel unwanted. I’ll lay odds we’ll see her calling for a taxi by suppertime.’

      Simon ignored the irony in these remarks and simply asserted that he would be more than happy to take Lydia home himself. ‘Where’s she actually living these days?’ he said.

      ‘Oh, Maida Vale-ish,’ said Flora vaguely. ‘You know.’ She had never actually been there.

      ‘I don’t,’ said Simon, ‘but I mean to find out.’ He turned to leave the room.

      ‘If you say even one word,’ said Flora, ‘to make her feel de trop I shall never have anything more to do with you.’

      He was half out of the door but he turned back to face her. ‘Now, would I do that?’ he said.

      He went down to the kitchen where Lydia and the eight-year-old Janey (looking fairly tough already) and the four-year-old Nell, all dressed in striped aprons, were sitting contemplating the meringues, all set out on a wire rack.

      ‘We’re waiting for them to get cold,’ squeaked Nell. ‘Then we’re going to put whipped cream inside them, and then we’re going to eat them!’

      ‘I say,’ said Simon. ‘It’s an orgy.’

      ‘What’s an orgy?’

      He caught Lydia’s dark brown (almost black) eye. ‘It’s a feast of pleasure,’ he said drily.

      ‘We’re not going to eat them all,’ said Janey very seriously. ‘We’re going to have one each. The rest are for pudding tonight.’

      ‘Ah,’ said Simon. Lydia stood up.

      ‘Gabriella should be back any minute now,’ she told him. ‘There’s a casserole in the oven for supper – she’ll do the rest. So when we’ve finished this meringue business I’ll begin making my way – as long as you don’t need me for anything more here. I was actually just about to go up and sort this out with Flora when you came in. I’ll go and do that now. See you in a minute, girls!’ She left the room.

      Oh God, thought Simon, she couldn’t have overheard anything, could she? Surely not – they’d been two floors away. ‘She’s in the nursery!’ he called out to her, as Lydia went up the stairs.

      She returned ten minutes later. She looked perfectly happy. No, she couldn’t possibly have overheard us, Simon assured himself. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘that’s all fixed. Simon, Flora told me that I must ask you if you’d mind taking me home – but for my part I must say that I wouldn’t dream of troubling you; I can get a taxi easily.’

      ‘We won’t hear of it,’ said Simon. ‘My pleasure. When did you want to leave?’

      ‘Well, Flora insisted on my staying for supper,’ said Lydia. ‘So after that, whenever you like. I’ll just go and pack up, anyway – we’ll do the meringues after that, girlies, okay? See you in a bit.’ And she went off again. And then Gabriella turned up, and the evening programme proceeded on its way, until, finally, the moment arrived for Simon to take Lydia home to Maida Vale.

       6

      It wasn’t what Simon would have called Maida Vale, but what the hell, here in any event they were, in a battered little street near the canal. ‘Hmmm,’ said Simon, looking up at the peeling façades of a terrace of ungentrified stucco-fronted houses; ‘interesting neighbourhood. I don’t believe I’ve ever been in this part of the world before.’

      And if I have anything to do with it, Lydia’s glance seemed to say, you won’t again. ‘Oh, really?’ she said, in the surprised tone of one to whom the remark might have been uttered in, say, Gloucester Road. ‘Well, never mind. You’re here now. Thank you so much for the lift. I do hope you’ll be able to find your way out again without too much trouble.’ She’d had to give him directions towards the end.

      ‘Oh, no problem, no problem,’ said Simon. ‘But look, you must let me give you a hand with that suitcase. Didn’t you say you lived on the top floor?’ The offer was purely a formality; the idea of entering the house was entirely unsympathetic: even fearsome. That peeling paint; God knew what rot might be found within.

      ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Lydia. ‘How very kind.’ Simon, flabbergasted, picked up the suitcase and followed Lydia – who was carrying two bulging plastic bags – through the front door and up the uncarpeted stairs.

      It seemed clean enough, even sound enough; the landings were free of refuse, needles, rats, and worse; there were no disgusting esoteric odours. It was a case of arrested decline rather than outright decay. They reached the top floor, and Lydia did the business with the mortice lock and at last opened her front door. ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘Do come in.’ He could hardly refuse; filled with a new dread, he entered Lydia’s flat.

      Lydia had darted across the room on to which the front door immediately opened and turned on a desk lamp, and Simon, still carrying the suitcase, beheld a sitting room with three arched windows which overlooked the street. He put the suitcase down and glanced around at the shabby furniture, the haphazard décor. ‘So this is where you live,’ he said pointlessly.

      ‘Yes,’ Lydia agreed. She folded her arms and looked at him; she seemed to be smiling, half at him (at him, not with him) and half to herself: a smile which seemed challenging, ironical, mysterious, and almost – had it not suddenly vanished – infuriating. Who the hell are you, he might almost have said, to smile at me like that?

      ‘Let me offer you a drink before you go,’ she said, and she turned before he could refuse and looked inside a Victorian sideboard affair. ‘I’m sure I’ve got something here, somewhere. ’ He stood there, helpless, while she rattled bottles, and then she stood up, holding one aloft. ‘How about this?’ she said.

      It was a bottle of green Chartreuse. Well, what else should it have been? ‘Just a very small one,’ he said.

      ‘Of course.’ She poured out two liqueur glasses full and handed him one. ‘Do sit down,’ she said, nodding towards the sofa. It was very faded and threadbare, and was draped with a large silk-fringed shawl. Simon sat down at one end, but Lydia remained standing by the sideboard. It was hard to tell in this half-light, but she seemed to be staring at him – not rudely, but certainly, frankly, staring.

      ‘Won’t СКАЧАТЬ