The Very Thought of You Page 14

  She felt that they had been circling each other for weeks. The first tentative glances between them, his first touch of her arm in passing – all these moments had reached right through to her. She craved some recognition of their private bond.

  “Is there anything else you need?” she asked.

  “We don’t have any yellow paint,” said Anna sands, looking up.

  “No yellow paint,” concurred Pawel, with Asmile.

  “Then we must get you some,” said Elizabeth.

  So afresh trip to york was fixed, with another visit to the art shop. And afterwards, they once again sat face to face at A secluded restaurant table. Her eyes were so engaged, and her concern so transparent, that this time Pawel found himself confding in her and discharging at last the burden of his recent past.

  He told her about the horror of finding his mother’s charred house at Sulejów. But more, he conjured for her the chaos of the Nazi invasion – when the Panzers had broken through their defences so swiftly that thousands of Polish soldiers had been left scattered along the border front, cut off from the retreating army.

  “Transport was so scarce that hundreds of soldiers had to walk eastwards through Poland, just to find the regrouping army,” he told her. “I was lucky to get ahorse and cart at Sulejów, but when I reached the main road from Warsaw to Lublin, it was like abiblical exodus. The road was crammed with soldiers and reflugees – all you could see was Astream of cars, lorries, horses, carts, prams, bicycles, donkeys. The sun was glaring and there was dust all around us. The German planes were so frequent that we all felt as though we were being watched from above – like ants under araised boot.

  “I helped awoman and her three children onto my cart. Her name was Monika; she had round eyes and clung to her baby. Whenever Stukas buzzed over, we all ran for the side of the road. The bombs were aterror, but the machine-gun fire was more deadly – achilling sound, I can still hear it.

  “As we were reaching Lublin, three more planes appeared. Monika’s older children moved quickly, but they were struck down with gunfre. The boy went down silently, at once. The girl wailed, ahopeless cry—”

  Elizabeth watched him pinch his nose with his thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes.

  “I had never seen anything like that woman’s anguish; she howled over their bodies. I felt ashamed to be alive. I can still see the purple veins straining on her forehead.” he paused again, glancing at Elizabeth.

  “I did what I could. I helped the mother to bury her children, then she begged me to move on. So I did as she asked, leaving her with her baby and the cart.”

  Elizabeth tried to meet his eyes.

  “Did you ever find anew troop to join?” she asked him.

  “At Lublin,” he nodded. “I heard that there were soldiers at the station, so I went there, and found at last some reservists, heading south to join general Sosnowski’s army. When our train set off there was no room to sit, so we all stood pressed up against each other.

  “We were attacked several times on the way to Lvov. Whenever aplane buzzed in the distance, the train stopped and we dived out of the carriages to find cover.

  “I’ve never known such raw fear as I felt then – running over open ground, with planes above, waiting for bullets to rip through me. Each time, afew soldiers did not come back to the train – it was random, which of us escaped.”

  He looked away as he spoke.

  “The rest you know. By the time we reached Lvov, the town was surrounded and we had to surrender to the russians. I escaped over the border to romania, and ended up in areflugee camp outside Bucharest. And there I remained until Peter Norton arrived in her lorry.”

  He was still evading Elizabeth’s eyes.

  “Pawel,” she said, reaching out her hand. “It is ablessing that you survived—” she added in alow voice, and for the first time they looked at each other frankly.

  24

  Elizabeth and Pawel soon made another visit to york. But this time they spent the afternoon alone together in the royal Station hotel. Elizabeth gave Pawel money to pay for the room in advance, and then slipped upstairs by herself, careful not to be seen.

  She had been brooding over Pawel’s shape for weeks, wondering how the hair grew on his chest, his legs, his arms. When he removed his clothes she was amazed by the fact of his body.

  They did not hide beneath cold starched sheets but looked at each other. The frankness of her desire moved Pawel; there was nothing stilted or shy in her response to him. Never before had he known such unguarded intimacy.

  Afterwards, he held her in his arms, and was touched by her vulnerability. They drifted into sleep together – waking only just in time to return to Ashton for dinner.

  “Would you care to try our mint sauce, Pawel? Mint, vinegar and sugar, an english speciality—”

  Thomas’s manners that night were, as always, gentle and unforced as he carved the roast lamb from the estate – arare treat. Can I do this? thought Pawel. Is this man encouraging me into the arms of his wife for some private game, or is he ignorant of our glances?

  In the months which followed, Astrange triangle of complicity came into play between Pawel and the Ashtons – and all within ahouse dominated by the complicated timetable of schoolchildren. There was never atime without bells ringing for lessons, comings and goings in corridors, and crocodiles of children fling into the dining room. Pawel relished this constant traffc of people passing through their lives, between them, past them, obscuring their affair.

  Unexpectedly, Elizabeth’s relationship with her husband began to fourish. Now that she was content with another man, she liked to stroke Thomas’s arm as she passed him, and show him affection in public. Such signs of marital intimacy only fred Pawel further.

  Their joyous, reckless communion continued for many weeks, and Pawel’s urgency was like adrug to Elizabeth. Every day, she just wanted to be with him, to lay her head on his chest and stroke his face. To adore him and care for him. To start again – she was only thirty-four. She even dared to dream that if she threw off the shackles of Ashton Park, she might conceive Pawel’s child.

  Yet as she grew more confdent with her lover, something began to leak away. Subtly, unacknowledged at first, a canker crept in, an inequality of desire on the part of Pawel.

  It happened gradually, this crack of disconnection. Was it the wild devotion in Elizabeth’s face which first distanced him? he began to see her again from the outside, and there was aglint of extremity in her eyes which troubled him.

  One night, Thomas was playing the piano inside, his beloved Schubert, and the music fowed through the open French windows to the colonnade. It was after dinner, and Elizabeth was alittle drunk.

  “Dance with me,” she said to Pawel, but he was reluctant. She walked over to Thomas.

  “The man won’t dance with me if you play that music. Please play something else – for us.”

  Thomas looked up with steady eyes and even as he watched them his fingers changed the tune from Schubert to Jerome Kern.

  Elizabeth laughed. Thomas and Pawel looked at each other for Amoment. Then Elizabeth swept towards the young man and they danced together on the terrace.

  Oh, but you’re lovely, with your smile so warm

  And your cheek so soft,

  There is nothing for me but to love you

  Just the way you look tonight…

  At the end of the song Pawel walked away into the gardens. Elizabeth went after him.

  “Don’t go,” she cried out too loud. “He’ll play some more, it’s fne.”

  “I don’t want to dance,” said Pawel.

  “Please—”

  “I said, I do not want to dance.”

  “Is it him? Is it him you’re worried about? he doesn’t mind.”

  Pawel turned to her with quiet ferocity.

  “Please – leave me alone.”

  He backed away. She did not follow, but stood in the halflight of the garden, peering after him.

&
nbsp; Thomas closed the piano lid, and discreetly wheeled himself to bed.

  The next morning Elizabeth felt mortifed by her behaviour to both men. She was contrite towards Thomas, and sought out Pawel to ask his forgiveness. But it was too late.

  Pawel now wanted to leave. He did not want to witness a disintegrating marriage. He had always meant to move on after recuperating, he reminded himself. Without telling Elizabeth, he made enquiries into joining a Polish air squadron stationed in Derby, to train as apilot.

  His departure followed within days. He said goodbye to the children and packed akitbag with the few clothes which had been bought for him by the Nortons. He bid acourteous farewell to Thomas who, if he was surprised at his decision, did not show it. Then he went to find Elizabeth, drawing her aside from Ameeting with the kitchen staff.

  “I have come to say goodbye, Elizabeth—”

  The colour drained from her face.

  He was brisk and robust. He left her sitting on a chair in the corridor with achildlike look of puzzled grief on her face, the tears about to pour forth, but he did not wait for that. He was off, walking to the village and taking the first coach south.

  It was cruel to be so abrupt, he knew, but he could not bear to listen to her pleas. He felt Astifed pang of guilt, nonetheless. For raising up her hope, then sluicing it away.

  Elizabeth hid in her room, stunned. She experienced the parting as something physical, abrutal severance which seemed to slice at the very roots of her heart. She began to shake all over. Thomas found her tightly curled up on her bed, uttering low cries of pain.

  She shook so much that she was overtaken by fever and had to lie in bed for three days, her sheets soaked with sweat. Thomas stayed with her and sponged her with water.

  For some weeks Elizabeth foundered in a depression in which silence alternated with tantrums, rage and bitterness. Thomas was the only one allowed into the privacy of her grief, and he did what he could to comfort her. She talked about her lover as if Thomas had already guessed everything. Seeing that she was unwell, he never made any recriminations.

  He did not know what he felt in the aftermath of his wife’s infidelity.

  25

  One day, when Elizabeth was still bedridden, Thomas noticed Ruth Weir walking through the gardens on her own. As he watched her from his study window, he was struck by her abstracted air – she often appeared to be inside her head. It occurred to him that he knew very little about this young teacher; he hoped she was not too isolated at Ashton. She was always polite in staff meetings, yet reserved, too; not easy to talk to.

  He had gathered from Mr Stewart that Ruth was avicar’s daughter recently graduated from Oxford, who had come to Ashton from his school in Pimlico. She was reticent but bright-eyed, with a pale face and sandy hair – not somebody you noticed immediately, Thomas refected. It had surprised him to look at her at lunch one day, and see that she was pretty, with very fair skin and a touching smile.

  Watching her now as she walked past the fountain, he found himself curious about her; she was tentative and guarded, yet paradoxically, there was something transparent about her, too.

  Later that week, as Ruth wheeled him along the west-wing corridor after alesson, he tried to engage her in polite chat.

  “Have you found enough to occupy you here?”

  “Well – I love walking.”

  “you must make sure to visit Rievaulx Abbey in this clear weather.”

  “I walked along the valley to it last weekend.”

  “It’s afne place, isn’t it?”

  “yes,” she said at once, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen… such beauty.”

  She expressed this last sentiment with such intensity that Thomas at first wanted to laugh. But instead, for Amoment, he opened himself to the sincerity of her response. She still had afresh eye on the world.

  They began to talk about the park – the contours of the valley, the sweep of the lawns – and he pointed out particular trees as they passed each window. By the time they reached his study, he felt anew affnity with Ruth.

  Brief, insignifcant conversations followed, in the staffroom, or over lunch. Polite enquiries about the places of her childhood, questions about novels she was reading. The delicacy of their mutual formality made him smile.

  He began to look forward to any occasion when she might wheel him from one classroom to another. He was even storing up things to say to her, knowing it was ridiculous.

  “If you go to the lower woods next week, you’ll see the bluebells coming out.”

  “They’re already coming through,” she told him, “The children showed me.”

  “I think you’ll be amazed by their abundance this weekend.”

  “I’ve never seen abluebell wood like that before, the colours are so vivid…”

  There seemed to be little they could say to each other beyond these mutual moments of enthusiasm, but the nothing they said was measured out with unexpected feeling.

  As spring opened up their days, he found himself moved by Ruth’s way of seeing; subtly, she was reawakening apart of him, his unspoken delight in nature. He sensed her eye for the elusive grace of ordinary things, the wind through the trees, the light off the lake, the roll of the moors. He had forgotten, even, that this sensibility had ever mattered to him too. Perhaps it was simply her youth, but somehow she touched the springs of his old responses, true responses, which had been blocked off for too long.

  He wanted to show her that his eyes were still keen, too. It became absurdly important, suddenly, to talk about the bark of Asilver birch, or the shape of a horse chestnut tree in full bloom. He wanted her to share his pleasure in the sky’s slow evening closure over the park plain.

  One thursday, he was expecting her to wheel him back to the house as usual, but she wasn’t there.

  “She’s off sick,” said Mrs Robson, as she took him back to the house in Ruth’s stead. For the first time Thomas had to admit to himself that not only was he shaken by Ruth’s absence, but that he felt extraordinarily fretful about her. It was only mild flu, and she was up and about again within three days.

  “I’m so glad you’re back with us,” he said to her, when she reappeared in the staffroom.

  “It was only afeverish cold,” she said, embarrassed by any fuss. But the look of concern in his eyes touched her.

  * * *

  Ruth went off to her morning lessons, glad to be teaching again. It was one of her younger classes; she resumed her reading of Through the Looking Glass – then took the children to the window, and pointed out the statues of the lion and the unicorn on either side of the gateposts.

  “They escaped from the story and settled here at Ashton Park, but why?” she asked them, before setting their first writing task: a Conversation between the Lion and the Unicorn at Ashton Park. the children settled down with their pencils and exercise books.

  Ruth had felt nervous when she first arrived at Ashton Park, with its wartime jumble of Aschool. The children had come there haphazardly from different parts of London, and the classes were unevenly populated according to age. But she had organized Aslightly eccentric curriculum to suit their needs. With the older children, she was reading The Tempest and The Charge of the Light Brigade. For the younger ones, she had chosen the fairy tales of oscar Wilde.

  Teaching made her happy; she was content at Ashton because she knew she was doing something worthwhile. Yet she lacked friendship. After lessons, as she walked up the many stairs to her bedroom, she wondered if this place wasn’t making her too introspective, perhaps because there was nobody for her to confde in. She drew solace from her small neat bedroom on the top floor, just wide enough to hold her clothes and books and achest of drawers – but she worried whether she was retreating there too readily.

  Her arrival at this vast, unknown house had been so unexpected, the war abruptly removing her from her tentative social life in London. In some ways she was relieved not to have to brace herself for possible relationships quite y
et; she felt safe here, as if she could postpone her fluture alittle longer.

  And yet something about her spartan new life was making her dig up hidden feelings. Perhaps it was because she was lonely – or perhaps this place was only making her realize that she was too solitary by inclination.

  She had always doubted her ability to find love, though she could not say why. at London parties, she had observed how the men responded to self-possessed women, but she did not know how to become one of them. She would have liked to carry herself sensuously, with painted nails, and bold cosmetics, but lacked the self-confdence to attempt any sophistication. She was low-key, invisible even – alegacy, perhaps, from her emotionally withdrawn childhood.

  Hers had been Astiff upbringing, the relationship with her parents formal and semi-detached. There were scholarships for vicars’ daughters at alocal preparatory school, and so she had been sent away at eight, to receive the ambiguous privilege of aboarding-school education. There she suffered dire homesickness, compounded by adaily guilt that she was not grateful enough for the education which she knew had been given to her at some cost.

  She could still remember her first trip home from school, the stilted embrace with her mother, her shyness with her father. Before, they had seemed apart of her, but suddenly she could see them only from the outside, detached from her. She had learnt to collude with her parents’ distance by being polite and cheerful, but her wounds were hidden inside. at boarding school, the letters from home were erratic and there were various birthdays on which no card arrived.

  Cut off from parental affection, her sense of physical proximity had grown achingly heightened. If anyone so much as held her arm, or put ahand on her shoulder, afrisson raced through her and froze her. at Oxford, she had been dazzled by the lecture halls packed with so many young men, but her shyness had held her back; much of her time she had spent alone in her room at Somerville, reading poetry, pacing up and down her study in apalpitation of excitement about anew book.

  Later, when she became a teacher, she realized that it was only with children that she felt relaxed, and open, and naturally affectionate. She was Aspontaneous mentor, responsive and patient. Her own understanding of loneliness had made her especially sensitive to those in her care.