Faith Fox Read online

  He thought of silly Holly, sexy and laughing and obvious, of her child in the lamplight, of Jack’s narrow sweet face. A wonderful face. His fortune. Women loved it. Always had. Even old Pammie in her pearl studs and her million-pound house.

  And Jocasta?

  There had been a sensual, submissive quiet about Jocasta walking this morning beside Jack after the tempestuous night. Jack’s hand had touched the back of Jocasta’s neck for a moment as they had passed through the door to the kitchen and she had not shrunk away. Jack had looked down at her with love.

  A great wave of longing for Jocasta filled Andrew now. Jocasta, my Jocasta, his heart called.

  Her voice calling after him, ‘Stay with me.’ Was it, maybe, after all, not unforgivable?

  28

  When Pammie saw the letter on the high shelf in the garage above the spot where poor Hugo had laid down his head for the last time, she stood for a moment looking at it. She took it in her hands. The junk mail and the phone bill she put in her pocket. She examined the old-fashioned handwriting on the Yorkshire envelope.

  She wondered why she felt so still. Then she realised that she wasn’t talking to anyone. The relentless, exhausting inner voice that accompanied her everywhere, even in dreams, was quiet. She had no desire to share this curious event. And at the same time she had the mad notion that the letter must be from Hugo. That he had got it to her from wherever he had gone. And then she thought, I’m going mad. It must be a letter of condolence, and walked into the house.

  Standing once more in the rosy drawing room about to be demolished in favour of Japan, she thought, But it couldn’t be. He wasn’t dead then.

  She considered a letter of condolence for one’s own death being put into one’s hands ahead of time by the postman. The Black Spot. Enough to give you a heart attack.

  But it hadn’t been opened. Maybe—stretching up to the shelf and then stooping down to the mower—it had been Hugo’s Black Spot. She saw it happen. Yet, even so, the voice of the full-time whispering raconteur, the entertainer of unsuspecting Jinny and Laura and Didi and Wendy and Thomasina, kept silence. For more important than the telling of this macabre little happening, Pammie found, was the happening itself.

  And after all, here it was: it was a letter of condolence before death—a letter written two days before Hugo’s departure to greener lawns.

  ‘My dear Mrs. Jefford,’ it said, ‘I was so sorry . . . ’

  It must be from some seer.

  But it went on. ‘I was so sorry not to have been able to see you properly on to the London train the other day and now I wish so much that I had not burdened you with the potatoes. I very much blame myself after your incredibly tiring day for insisting that we stop to see the church of St Ethelswitha and St Eadburga (who was, of course, King Alfred’s mother) and the lovely market town of Stokesley. I very seldom drive these days on account of absent-mindedness and I misjudged the time it would take to get to York. The full glory of the day was upon me, the mixture of sorrow and joy. Our Holly’s death and the arrival of Faith at The Priors have rather disoriented me. I don’t believe any of us has ever thanked you for the valiant rescue of my niece, but I promise you it will never be forgotten by her family. You and your husband are welcome here not only to see the child but whenever you wish to come for a holiday, to stay as long as possible. We have, as you saw, plenty of room! I should like to say that your bracing presence and common sense—and, if I may say so, your lovely face—steadied us all on a very emotional day and you are remembered in our prayers.

  ‘There is much I want to show you. Our Tibetans. Jocasta, whom you did not really meet. Faith’s grandparents, who are very keen to meet and thank you. God bless you. Until your next visit,

  ‘Jack Braithwaite.’

  One would have expected this from Andrew, she thought, sitting on a velvet humpty, gazing at the doomed mock-Adam fireplace with its twirl of heather in the grate like Country Life. She had found the heather pushed into the top of the bag of potatoes.

  The whirlwind day in Yorkshire returned to her. She had forgotten most of it. It seemed distant. Mixed with guilt. The guilt of having left Hugo alone when he had had such a short time to go. That in turn had led to the guilt of having neglected him during the time when they had housed the baby.

  Not that she had ever hung over the baby. Like all childless women, Pammie did not believe in hanging over babies. ‘Babies need letting alone and if they cry they cry,’ thought and declared Pammie, who had never been kept awake by anything in her life. Her dogs as puppies had been banished to an outhouse with a nice rug and a ticking clock for company. They had been very well-behaved dogs; you hardly knew they were there. That is how, she had told the night nurse, she should treat Faith.

  Hugo had done more hanging about over Faith than she. The baby had never gripped her finger and smiled. Pammie had a secret notion that it hadn’t gripped Hugo’s finger either. He’d been so dotty. It was probably the nurse’s finger he’d caught hold of.

  No. That wouldn’t do. Hugo had been faithful. Always. Proud of her and her busy life. Found it commendable. Funny. Liked the way she biffed about. Made jokes about it. She’d liked the jokes and overdid the biffing to have more of them, pinning up lists of future events and phone numbers all over the kitchen, getting Christmas finished before anyone else. All the presents bought and wrapped by December the first. Dear old Hugo.

  ‘Your lovely face.’

  Well.

  She reread the letter, wondering why exactly she liked it so much. There wouldn’t be much bought and wrapped at The Priors by December the first. Or the twenty-first. The state of that office place. And that boy’s hair. Looked cut with the kitchen scissors. And the old witch stirring over the stove. And the grease in that refectory!

  She began to consider what she knew of Christmases in religious institutions. Her Christmas cards had often pictured such scenes. Rollicking tonsures. One couldn’t imagine a Christmas card depicting The Priors, not unless it was an appeal for the Third World. But such lovely country. It must be looking beautiful now, probably under snow. Thomasina suggested Cyprus for Christmas but they hadn’t done anything about it yet. Not one word from the dreaded Andrew. Good of him to come to the funeral, of course. The little dark woman with him must have been the terrifying Jocasta. How good of Jack to send her to stand in for him, especially as she was obviously his wife only in a very bohemian sort of way. She didn’t look the type you ordered around. Maybe she was one of those romantics—those Arthurian romantics, playing at courtly love, that you hear about still. Though not likely. She must have wanted to come. I wonder who had the baby overnight. Not a word in this letter about how the baby is doing. Probably hasn’t noticed. Unworldly. Not exactly the family man. A bit crazy.

  ‘Lovely face’, he says, ‘if I may say so.’

  And thinking of Hugo’s old noddle wagging up and down over the baby’s cot Pammie remembered it was Hugo, the morning he died, who had suggested they go north to visit The Priors together for a nice weekend, and she rose from the humpty, crossed the room and dialled the number.

  As the phone rang far away in the cold old ruin she hung on and on, looking out at her garden through the magnificent potted azaleas on the windowsill to the odd rogue rose still dancing and springing about untidily, brilliantly, eight feet high above the box parterre, the odd gold leaf, the odd still-juicy branch of singed and shrivelled buddleia. A desultory blue pyre rose from the last hedge-clippings over on the bonfire place behind and in front of the mirrored trellis and drifting leaves lay all over the grass. Whatever would Hugo say?

  The phone rang on and on in the office of The Priors, for so long that the Tibetan girl came over at last from the sheds, Faith hanging fore and aft under her arm. But by the time she reached it Pammie had rung off.

  ‘Yes? Hello?’ Jocasta, getting out of the car from the school run, saw the girl coming fr
om the office into the courtyard. ‘D’you want something? What’s under your arm?’

  The girl put the roll of padded matting up on her shoulder. A face looked out, like an owl in a hollow tree.

  ‘Oh, Faith. Well, she’s warm enough anyway. What do you want?’

  ‘The phone was ringing.’

  Jack came from the direction of the chapel, carrying a bucket. ‘Yes? The Missus? Where is she?’

  ‘I missed it. Rang off as I picked it up. Been ringing on and on. Driving you crazy. I went over to try to stop it.’

  ‘Why was no one there?’ asked Jocasta.

  ‘I had chickens to feed.’ Jack lowered his eyes before her.

  ‘Where’s Andrew, then?’

  ‘He’s gone down to Toots. In case Alice is there. Or in case they’ve heard something from her.’

  ‘I thought he wasn’t going down there again unless the baby was with him. They’re very upset they haven’t seen her.’

  ‘I know. He felt he couldn’t. She wasn’t ready.’

  ‘Pema says ’er eye’s gone wrong agen,’ said the girl. ‘And there’s a message from Pema. She says there’s more food needed in the sheds. We’re out of everythin.’

  ‘The Missus isn’t here today, I’m afraid.’ Jack looked helplessly at Jocasta. ‘Somebody else will have to take over.’

  ‘I don’t cook,’ said Jocasta.

  ‘Well, you can eat with us lot if yer like,’ said the girl. ‘Just get us in some stuff, like. Or I can go down Whitby. I could get some takeaways.’

  ‘Well, I’ve a class now,’ said Jocasta, ‘if you’re all ready?’

  She walked with the baby and the girl to the studio shed while Jack went alone to the office and wondered what to do. Sitting in all the dust, he moved his hands over the mess of papers. The hands were dirtied by the chicken mash and he remembered there’d been no soap in the bathroom this morning. There was a button off his shirt cuff and he pressed the edges together hopefully, wishing they would stick. He thought of Jocasta’s neat clothes. They don’t do things for men any more, he thought, and drooped. He had a facility for this, almost sensuous, a wilting of the frame, head bowed in humility. God watching.

  He thought of his mother waddling up and down that passage in the house on the estuary over fifty years. Ten and thirty times a day with offerings for Toots. Paddle, paddle. Carrying Toots’s beautifully polished shoes with the pressed laces.

  The telephone rang.

  ‘Hello? Hello? Missus? Alice?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no. Is that Jack Braithwaite? This is Pammie Jefford.’

  He couldn’t imagine who that was.

  ‘I’ve just seen your letter.’

  ‘My letter?’

  ‘Written just before my husband died.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. I do hope that it was helpful.’ Then he remembered her. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t write about that. I purposely sent Jocasta instead to the funeral. The farm . . . I felt that prayers for you would be more valuable. I do hope so. Letters of condolence only have to be answered. I didn’t forget you, my dear.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He sounds ninety. ‘No, this was a letter you wrote me earlier. About the day I spent with you. When I brought Faith. I’ve just found it. It had been—mislaid.’

  There was a pause, growing long. Pammie in Coombe felt herself grow shy. When she realised that Jack had forgotten about the letter and the affection in it, she found to her great surprise that she was crying.

  ‘I brought you the baby.’

  The pause continued. She had been cut off?

  Then Jack said slowly, ‘I don’t suppose you could possibly . . . ’

  The wallpapery room swam, the pot plants trembled. Pammie found her handkerchief. She said—and it came out aggressively—‘What?’

  ‘. . . come here again? We’re in a bit of trouble. My old housekeeper has, well, actually disappeared. I don’t like to ask. I hear you’re very high-powered. Justice of the Peace. On committees and so on. Can’t pretend it’s comfortable here.’

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ she said and rang off as the room came back into focus.

  She tossed the letter into the flower-painted wastepaper basket, chucked the measuring rod for the home improvements on to a chair, went into the kitchen and made coffee. She poured the coffee into an ornate green and gold cup, placed a silver teaspoon in the saucer, carried the coffee to Hugo’s old study and sat in his polished swivel chair. She sat. Bloody cheek, she thought. Then she swivelled round in it, full circle. Once. She dialled Thomasina.

  ‘My dear! Now, whatever do you think about this? What do you think I should do? Yes—now! So I gather. Great crisis. Oh, yes. Some sort of walkout by staff. Yes, I gather that too: storms in teacups—they’re never without them up there. Not enough to do. They’re all a bit mad. Hysterical. Life full of nothing but incidents you and I could fix in five minutes. It’s the North. These people talk about them afterwards for years. Oh no—my dear, I am not smitten. Yes, I know he’s charismatic or whatever they call it. He’s years younger than me and he’s married. In a sort of way.

  ‘Imposition? Well, I don’t know. Is it, Thomasina? You? No, you shouldn’t be the one to go. Don’t let me mess you about, suggesting that. You know how we all felt about Egypt, but that’s your affair. You don’t have to grovel. Yes—OK, then. I’ll leave it. I won’t say another word. You’ve been very good to me since then. Nobody could have been kinder.

  ‘Andrew? Haven’t you heard from him? He’s dropped you! How could he, you’re Holly’s mother. It just isn’t done and even if he’s from the back of beyond he’s a gent. Yes, I know he’s worked off his feet. He looked awful in Yorkshire. His brother’s twenty years older, different generation, but he looked the better horse, I must say. Quite young, really. Jack Braithwaite’s the sort that doesn’t age. It’s all that curly hair and the Thomas Hardy look—though, mind you, Thomas Hardy wouldn’t have lasted up there ten minutes. No golden harvests and lands of the great dairies up there, Thomasina dear. No cider apples and greenwood trees. A frightful barren place. How he does it with only two village idiots—well, you’ve been there. I’ll give you some of his potatoes.

  ‘Thomasina? Thomasina—are you there? Yes, I’m better, of course I’m better, I started to feel better this morning. Hugo wouldn’t have wanted . . . I had a letter from him this morning. No, of course not. From Jack. Written just before dear Hugo set sail. Very nice. Lovely letter. It’s what I rang for.

  ‘Yes, it would mean no Cyprus for Christmas . . . I did just wonder, well, it’s occurring to me now, actually, I suppose you wouldn’t feel like spending Christmas at—well, northwards?’

  ‘I’ll ring back,’ said Thomasina.

  A crash from the kitchen had signalled a crisis from the general, who was making wine on the end of the kitchen table.

  ‘Trouble with the bungs,’ he said.

  ‘Pammie,’ she said carefully, as she swept up the green splinters into a long-handled dustpan with a long-handled nylon broom—her fingernails so pretty, not a crack in the lacquer—‘Pammie on the phone. She’s thinking of going up to see the baby again.’

  ‘It’s far too far to go up and back in one day.’

  ‘She indicated,’ Thomasina handed him the dustpan of debris to carry across the kitchen to the litter bin with its white plastic lining, ‘that she might be going to live there.’

  ‘My God!’

  ‘And also she wondered if I’d like to go too. Join her there for Christmas.’

  ‘Alone?’ he asked, not looking at her, showering out the broken bits of glass.

  ‘She didn’t say. She hasn’t actually agreed to go herself yet. She’s had some sort of loving letter from Jack. She doesn’t know it yet but it’s the letter he writes to everyone.’

  ‘But isn’t he married?’

  ‘He marr
ied a hanger-on of Andrew. To comfort her.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Well—Holly, actually.’

  ‘And Holly?’ He went over and put his arms round her. ‘Holly? Go on then, Thorns.’

  ‘Well, Holly was rather naughty really. It wasn’t a bit like her. She just said once that Andrew had told Jack to have pity on one of his troublesome ex-patients and take her off his hands.’

  ‘Jack was obliging Andrew? How very odd.’

  She started laughing and the general joined in with a few snorts.

  ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘dear Jack doesn’t sound exactly Heathcliff.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Some women go mad for skin and bones. I do rather.’

  ‘And you can’t call Pammie Catherine Earnshaw,’ said the general.

  ‘I didn’t know you were an intellectual, darling.’

  ‘No fear. I saw it on a telly ad. I say—it’s rather good to be laughing, Thomasina.’

  She was frying (in butter) tiny pieces of liver with sage, dropping them deftly into the pan.

  After lunch they were going to Bentalls of Kingston to see after a new eiderdown for Thomasina’s bed, getting rid of the vulgar duvet. Then home in time to walk the new dog in the lanes.

  At six, over sherry, the general said, ‘Happy, Thoms? Not hankering after the blasted heath?’

  She said, ‘Shall we watch Blind Date? It’s so awful. I adore it.’ She eased off her shoes.

  ‘What thinking?’ he asked at bedtime before he set off for home, kissing her cheek.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Both knew that it had nothing to do with the fact that he was going home.

  She closed her eyes and he took her by the shoulders.

  ‘Say it, woman!’

  ‘Wondering,’ she said, ‘what to buy the wretched baby for Christmas.’

  ‘Why not say “Faith?”’