The Fleeting Years Read online

  ‘Come on, then, kids. Bring your anoraks in case it blows up. Spades, buckets, bat and ball; we’ll go adventuring. That’ll give you a quiet house, Zina.’

  Tommy still felt uneasy. Why would Mum want a quiet house? A child so like his father in appearance, one day he would be a heartbreaker if looks were anything to go on. But he hadn’t Peter’s outgoing, fun-loving personality. He looked uncertainly from one to the other. Understanding him so well, Zina gave him a quick smile and a cheerful, ‘Off you go and make sure you’ve got all your things.’ Reassured, he followed Fiona and turned his attention to hiding their towels under the front seats of the car before their mother spied them. They both had a natural instinct for getting what they wanted from Peter, but with Zina they very seldom came out on top.

  Leaving them to get settled with their seatbelts on, Zina walked down the drive so that she could open and close the gates and save Peter getting out. His wave of thanks was all she asked, that and the way he pursed his lips in a mock kiss of farewell. Walking on air she went back to the house and straight up the stairs to what was grandly known as the music room. In fact it was no such thing, the only hint of anything musical was a baby grand piano on which Peter would pound out familiar tunes after they had the occasional slightly drunken dinner party for some of his professional friends. With voices well lubricated, everyone would sing lustily. To him, that was what was meant by the word ‘music’.

  Opening a large built-in cupboard of no interest to anyone but herself, she took out her violin case and the music. With the instrument tucked under her chin she was conscious already of a feeling of contentment. The sound as she plucked the strings, tightening the pegs to make sure the tuning was perfect, was like the caress of a lifelong lover; she was at peace with the world.

  But it didn’t last. Even as she drew the first note she heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel drive. Moving nearer the window she stood just to one side trying to keep out of sight as she looked down at the caller. No one lived near and yet there was no sign of a car. It was a stranger, a woman clearly with no care for her appearance. Her trousers both too baggy and too long, a shapeless three-quarter length coat, all topped with a battered panama hat. What sort of a person would go out looking such a sight?

  ‘Bugger!’ Not a usual expression of Zina’s but at that moment nothing less would have done and the sight of such an unkempt visitor put extra feeling into the single word. If she pretended no one was at home, the stranger would go away. But even as she withdrew further into the room to be sure of staying out of sight, a shower of tiny pebbles from the drive hit the window.

  ‘Yoo-hoo!’ a voice called, a voice very out-of-keeping with her appearance. ‘I met Peter, he said that room was where I’d find you.’

  There was nothing for it but for Zina to fling open the window and lean out.

  ‘You just met Peter?’

  ‘Yes, he pulled over when he recognized me. He said for me to come and interrupt you, is that OK? I’m Celia Turnbull. I ate your share of your anniversary lunch when he drove me down. May I inflict myself on you or are you frightfully busy? Honestly I’ll understand if you’re practising; I know how I’d feel if some stranger came barging in when I’m working.’

  Had she not given Zina a chance to get a word in or was it the other way round, had Zina been so surprised by her visitor’s identity that she was left speechless?

  ‘Peter was right,’ she called in reply, ‘he knew I hoped we’d meet. I’ll come down and let you in.’

  ‘Can’t we sit in the sunshine for ten minutes? I’m too muddy to walk indoors.’

  So that’s what they did, Zina taking her to the wooden garden seat.

  ‘Where did you park? You surely haven’t walked all the way to cross the river on the bridge?’

  ‘I’m still carless. It died on me last time I was down and is still at the menders. I came across by boat, no less. When I took the house over, there was an almighty lot of junk in it, a few really good pieces of furniture too. And upside-down at the bottom of the garden, almost hidden in the weeds, was a boat – oh and in the shed three or four fishing rods and a pair of oars. Fishing must have been what the old chap used the boat for, I suppose. It’s a great way to get about, peace and quiet all around you. I saw two herons upstream yesterday.’

  Zina was already forgetting her pique at being disturbed. This woman was ‘real’, she wasn’t given to polite chit-chat about nothing.

  ‘Let’s have a drink,’ she suggested, ‘what would you like? Coffee or something stronger? Or is that a bit depraved so early in the day?’

  ‘Probably, but don’t let’s be put off by that. Tell you what I would really like, a beer. Have you got any?’

  ‘Lager from the fridge or room temperature ale? Peter is very fussy about his beer.’

  ‘Ordinary English room temp ale will be perfect. He’s a nice man, your husband. All the glitz of his profession hasn’t got to him. I really enjoyed our drive the other day. I came here this morning feeling I knew you already. You’re a lucky woman, Zina Marchand.’

  Zina nodded, her mouth turned into a smile even though her eyes didn’t get the message.

  ‘I’ll get the drinks, shan’t be a second.’

  In no time she was back carrying a tray, which she dumped between them on the seat.

  ‘Nothing very exciting, only cashews. If I’d known you were coming—’

  ‘You’d have baked a cake. Sorry, it was rotten of me to arrive like I did. He said you’d be up in the music room and I ought to have known better. I hope it hasn’t got us off on the wrong foot.’

  Celia was surprised when her remark was taken seriously.

  ‘I thought it had,’ Zina answered with more honesty than tact, ‘but that was before we talked. Yes, I intended to have a couple of hours practising – it’s quite important to me at the moment. But I’m really glad to have you here. I’ve read every one of your books and loved them all. When Peter told me you were living across the river I was thrilled and wanted to get to know you. But you’re not a bit what I expected.’

  ‘Now how’s a girl supposed to take a remark like that?’ Celia said with a deep-toned laugh. ‘Do you expect an artist to look like his paintings?’

  ‘I’ve never met an artist so I don’t know. But I have met a few composers – ages ago when I was at college – and I always felt their personalities fitted the music they wrote, light and gentle or bold, full of passion.’

  ‘Ah! Well, I fear you get what you see with me. Anything that comes out between the pages probably owes itself to the dreams of a repressed youth.’

  ‘That I do not believe. I love your books for the very reason that you have such understanding. You must have or you couldn’t write as you do.’

  ‘The longer we live, the more we are able to see and understand. But never mind me; tell me about you. Peter says you are itching to get back to your music. Of course you are, you didn’t work as hard as you must have done to give it all up and not look back with regret. Now you’re thinking of going back to it seriously. He’s quite upset about it, isn’t he?’

  ‘But he didn’t know anything about it when he drove you down. And even now, we aren’t talking to each other about it. It’s a sort of danger zone; neither of us know where talking about it would lead. When did he tell you? Not this morning?’

  ‘No. I met him the other day. He was on his own walking in the meadow your side of the river; I was on the rowing boat. So I persuaded him aboard.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me …’ Zina looked at her guest more closely. Surely she couldn’t be jealous of a scruffy creature like this? Of all the people she knew, Peter was the most particular about personal appearance.

  ‘He told me about the chance you have. And I shouldn’t be surprised if he was more open with me about his own feelings than he had been with you. I imagine he’s like all men, all bluff and bluster when it comes to their feelings, frightened to show their hurt.’

  Zina fr
owned. She ought to be angry that a mere stranger could talk to her about something that was simply between herself and Peter. But she couldn’t. Any anger she felt was aimed at him that he could discuss their affairs with an outsider.

  ‘I haven’t even told my mother about the suggestion. He had no right to discuss my affairs.’

  ‘I dare say you’re right, but it did him good to talk. He probably wouldn’t have mentioned it had he not told me previously about your giving up your career soon after you were married. He is so proud of you—’

  ‘Rubbish. He’s frightened I’ll have a life of my own instead of standing at ease ready to jump to attention when he can spare time to be home – and after the beginning of next term it will be the same even though Fiona and Tommy will have gone away to school. He’d like it for me to be here, keeping everything neat and tidy for when he finds time to slot me in for the odd couple of days in his busy life.’

  Celia laughed, the laugh that was so right with the deep tone of her voice.

  ‘I dare say there’s something of that in it. But mostly I think he is frightened for you. He told me what hopes there had been for you when you left college and how you’d given everything up when you were pregnant. But that’s ten years ago and he says although you say you’ve played by yourself in the house, you have never been tested and tried.’

  ‘I’ve had almost ten years of practising since I gave up my career and I know I play better now than I did then. He says he doesn’t want me to be hurt if I get turned down – but the truth is that I am much more hurt that he can’t trust me, that he tries to put me down.’

  Celia didn’t answer straight away and in the silence Zina wished she could withdraw her words. What was between Peter and her was nothing to do with anyone else and yet she had bared her soul to a stranger.

  ‘Be gentle with his male ego, Zina. He needs to feel that you depend on him. Men find it so hard to accept that they aren’t the breadwinners. And I don’t just mean from the amount of money they put in the pot.’

  ‘Are you married?’ For, if she wasn’t, what gave her the right to come here preaching?

  ‘Yes and no,’ Celia replied, clearly having no suspicion of what was behind the question. ‘I’ve been with Jacques for nineteen years, since I was twenty. He’s twenty-two years older than me; my family were horrified, disgusted. They saw me as some sort of a minx coming between a married man and his wife. Of course that was nonsense. Helga Brandt was a bitch of the first order, she had – and I dare say still has – only one interest: herself. At twenty I’d had the odd boyfriend, but until I met Jacques I had no idea about genuine love. He left his wife and we set up home together. She refused to divorce him and anyway she is a staunch Roman Catholic. It didn’t matter a damn to me whether we were married or not. We made vows to each other, vows that will last as long as we live. So, you could say I am married.’

  As a character Celia became more interesting by the minute.

  ‘Were you writing when you met him? Is he a writer?’

  ‘I was only just out of university. I got a job on a local newspaper, if you can call that writing. But Jacques was an artist, a portrait painter. Now you might ask, what would a portrait painter want with a face like mine? Somehow, that never came into it. We met at a party and left together. I was living in a bedsit in Oxford and he came home with me. Thinking back I marvel that I invited him, folk would say I was asking for trouble. But such a thought didn’t enter my head. We made strong coffee and we talked, we talked and talked … everything from politics to growing cabbages. There is nothing in this life so insignificant that it can’t be discussed. That’s what I learnt in those early weeks after meeting Jacques.’

  ‘And you’ve lived together ever since? That’s nearly twice as long as Peter and me. Does he still paint portraits? I’m sure I ought to know, but I’m pretty ignorant about the big outside world.’

  ‘Believe me, being part of the rush and bustle does little to educate one. I’m thankful to have escaped. Oh, not from Jacques. He’s joining me as soon as the place is finished and the floors aren’t cluttered with everything in the least expected places waiting to catch him out. You see, he has lost his sight. All he sees is a grey mist to show the difference between day and night. I can think of nothing worse. He has a male carer living with him while I get the house ready.’

  ‘He must be so wretched,’ Zina said, by now her thoughts no longer on her own problems. ‘Just awful. Dreadful for any of us, but for an artist even worse.’

  Celia nodded, tipping her battered hat to the back of her head and holding her face towards the sun.

  ‘He’s an incredible man. If I hadn’t fallen in love with him so thoroughly all those years ago, I would still have been filled with admiration for him now. In all our years he has never been boring or been bored by life – not even now. Except for his sight he is so fit, so alive. He accepts and makes up his mind that life is still for living. For me, caring for him is humbling. As the years go he will get older and, I dare say, be more dependent.’

  Zina nodded, her mind on herself and Peter. How would they cope with that sort of tragedy? Would he have the courage still to make something of his blighted life? Would she take pride in caring for him? Yes, of course that’s how it would be, she told herself, but at the same time she sent up a fervent prayer that they would never be tested.

  ‘Jacques and me, we may have problems to contend with, but they are shared problems. When you hear of couples whose relationship goes sour it makes you realize that a shared physical problem will never be insurmountable. Hark at me! I’ve finished my drink and eaten most of your nuts, now I’ll leave you in peace. Forgive me for disturbing you. Look, I always carry a bit of paper and a biro just to jot down any flash of inspir-ation, so I’ll scribble my telephone number and when you feel in need of company please do give me a call so that we can fix something. It’ll be another couple of weeks before I have the place straight enough for Jacques to get acquainted with.’

  Despite the interruption to her practice time Zina was sorry when her visitor stood up to leave.

  ‘Better than phoning,’ she said, ‘come and eat with us this evening – unless you work in the evening of course. I promised when they went off to the beach that I would get a meal ready for six o’clock. Is that too early for you?’

  ‘On the contrary, I’ll make do with bread and cheese for lunch and come starving hungry.’

  ‘Just one thing, Celia. I wonder why Peter didn’t tell me that he’d met you on your boat.’

  Celia looked concerned for a moment before she answered, clearly giving thought to what she said. ‘I wondered that too. But looking back to our talk by the river, I’d guess he wanted to forget the whole incident, look on it like a confessional. He talked because he needed to get it off his chest. He’s puzzled, he’s hurt and, well, I suppose the main thing is that he’s a man and, scratch the surface, you’ll find they are all the same, they all want to feel we depend on them. When Jacques was fighting his battle to accept that he could no longer paint, we went through a difficult time. He never tried to stop me writing, he knew he had to learn to accept. Not that either you or I would ever bring in the money of a film idol, but it’s not so much the cash as you’d take away from him the knowledge that you depend on him. That’s what hurts. Be gentle with Peter.’ With the palms of both hands on the crown of her battered straw hat she pushed it more firmly down on her head. ‘Now I’m off. I’ll be here at six on the dot and I look forward to it.’

  Two

  As the days of Peter’s unscheduled holiday passed, Celia became a frequent visitor. Zina hadn’t known such an easy relationship with a friend since her schooldays, and clearly Peter enjoyed her company.

  He had guessed he might be home for about two weeks, but two became three and, although he talked often to Herbert, his friend and the film’s director, it seemed there were hold-ups and they would be in East Anglia considerably longer than they had expected. So the days
drifted by. Zina had a letter from Derek Masters inviting her to come to the rehearsal in Deremouth on the first Wednesday of July.

  ‘Peter, you know I’ve never practised when you’re at home, but now I must. You might even still be here at the beginning of next month when I get put to the test, so I must practise two or three hours a day.’

  He looked at her without answering, his expression hard to fathom. Remembering what Celia had said about his being hurt, she held out her hand to take his, then when he made no movement she grabbed it anyway. They couldn’t go on like this; their daily cool politeness was driving a wedge between them.

  ‘I wish you’d just make some effort to understand,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m going to have a try-out at their rehearsal in Deremouth on the fourth of July.’ If she’d left it at that, perhaps he might have tried to accept. Instead she went on, with a change in her tone that seemed to shut him out. ‘Just imagine it. I shall be sitting in that small group, part of the glorious sound. It’s feels like a dream.’

  ‘It isn’t where I imagined your dreams had always been. And supposing you don’t come up to scratch?’

  ‘Please Peter, please. I’m ready to be turned down. I’ll only be away for that one day, not much more than a morning, and it isn’t like applying for some job where I’ll have to start immediately. I’ll be here for the children until September. And even if I’m good enough to be accepted I shall mostly be at home. There’ll be rehearsals before engagements or recordings, but it’s not like a full-time job.’ Then, with a change of subject, which she hoped would take that expression from his face, she added, ‘And somehow we ought both to take the children when the day comes for them to go to St Mary’s.’ Surely that last sentence would show him that holding the four of them as a tight-knit family was as important to her as it always had been.