The Beaufort Sisters. Jon Cleary
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to see where we live.’
Nina’s face was blank. ‘A good idea.’
Nina and Michael, her parents and Margaret, came down by chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce the day after Boxing Day. The big car rolled through the village and the villagers stopped and looked after it when they saw Nina sitting in the car. It drew up at the boat-yard and Steve Hamill came into the office where Tim was struggling with a stock list.
‘The wife’s outside. Yours, not mine. In a bloody great Rolls. I must say she looks at home in it.’
Tim went out to the car. It was a cold day, a wind coming in from the ice-works of Russia, and only Lucas got out of the car. ‘Nice little place. Bit primitive though, isn’t it?’
‘We preserve the primitive here in England. It’s part of our tradition.’ He tried to keep the acid off his tongue; he wasn’t looking for another battle. ‘It seems to work.’
‘Couldn’t work in these conditions myself.’
‘Lucas – ’ He couldn’t resist it; even so he diluted the acid with a smile. ‘You’ve always worked in a board-room. These conditions here are no worse than those I worked in at the stockyards. Did the chaps there ever get their raise?’
‘No. But we gave them a fifty-dollar bonus for Christmas.’
‘Your place in Heaven is assured.’
‘You’re too cynical, Tim.’
‘No, just whimsical. You bring it on in me. Shall we go down and look at our house? The conditions there are a little better. Just.’
Lucas and Edith were appalled at the conditions that Nina and Michael had to live in; they didn’t appear to worry about Tim, he was English and accustomed to such living. They said nothing to him, though doing a poor job of disguising their reaction; but they had a lot to say to Nina when Tim took Margaret for a walk round the small island. Edith kept her mink coat on all the time, as if to emphasize her feeling that the fires, blazing though they were and supplemented by electric radiators, were useless in such a house.
‘You can’t live like this. You’ll have to get a better house. It’s not fair to Michael. He’ll grow up crippled with arthritis or something.’
‘I couldn’t live in these conditions myself,’ said Lucas. ‘We’ll have to do better for you.’
Nina shook her head. ‘This house was my mistake, not Tim’s. I’ll look around for something better. But you’re not to say a word to Tim, understand? He’s working hard and he’s perfectly happy.’
Out in the grounds Tim was saying, ‘Perhaps the boat-yard is not what I want for the rest of my life. But it’s a start.’
‘I still think you should have stayed in America,’ said Margaret. ‘You liked all our creature comforts, I know you did. You should have gone out to California, started something there.’
‘How did you know I liked the creature comforts?’
‘I know you better than you think. Prue used to say you were always looking at things, and you were. While you were, I was looking at you. And you lapped up everything the family could offer you. Everything but Daddy wanting to run you the way he runs the rest of us.’
They had been walking arm-in-arm, but now he moved away from her on the pretext of pulling off a switch from one of the willows that lined the river bank. He swung the switch back and forth, taking the heads off the yellow reed-feathers along the bank, like a destructive schoolboy who, for reasons he couldn’t name, had to abuse nature. Then he stopped, regretting the reed-feathers lying like gold dust on the thin snow that had fallen last night. He looked sideways at her, again like a schoolboy.
‘What else have you observed about me?’ He felt uncomfortable with her; her very youth somehow made her formidable. ‘Never mind, I don’t want to know. But obviously I should have been looking at you more closely.’
‘You could have done worse.’
At first he didn’t catch what she meant. Then he burst out laughing, more with surprise than amusement. ‘Meg, for Christ’s sake – ! I don’t play around – ’
‘I know that. That was why it was all so hopeless.’ She said it flatly, with no dramatics.
It might have been better if there had been dramatics: then he could have put it down to a crush on him. But he realized, with sickening certainty and no conceit, that she was in love with him. He slammed the willow switch against the trunk of a wych-elm, a substitute for her. He wanted to whip some sense into her, could feel the anger building in him as he stared at her.
‘Jesus God Almighty – Meg, do you know what you’re saying? Of course you do – ’ He saw the pain in her dark eyes. He threw the willow switch into the river, afraid of the angry trembling in his hands. He walked on and she fell into step beside him but did not put her arm in his this time. ‘Meg, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to put all this out of your head. I’m married to Nina and I’m in love with her and that’s that.’
‘Don’t you think I know it? I shouldn’t have told you. But it slipped out.’
‘You’ve got to be sensible – ’ He sounded as if he were talking to a schoolgirl; and he didn’t want to sound that way. This was far more serious, for himself as well as for her, than a fleeting schoolgirl fantasy. He began to wish she wasn’t so damned adult. ‘You’ll be unhappy, I suppose, for a while. But you’ll make me unhappy. And Nina, too, if she ever found out.’
‘She won’t. I’m not a bitch. And I said I’m sorry I told you.’
Out of habit he went to kiss her on the cheek, as he had done innumerable times; but at the last moment held himself back. ‘Let’s go back to the house. One thing I’m glad of – there are no tears.’
‘There may be tonight,’ she said. ‘But you’re safe for now.’
The Beauforts went back to London in the afternoon, Lucas and Edith convinced that Nina had condemned herself to a life of poverty, Margaret angry and ashamed that she had exposed her feelings to Tim. They stayed another week in London but did not come down to Stoke Bayard again. Tim and Nina went up to visit them and Nina stayed at the Savoy with Michael for a couple of nights. Edith and Lucas said nothing more about the way in which the Davorens were living, but when Tim came up on the last day Lucas took him aside.
‘I meant what I said, Tim. If you want to expand that boatyard, call on me. Don’t go to a bank. No point in getting into their clutches,’ he said with a banker’s smile.
Nor in yours, Lucas old chap. ‘I shan’t think of expanding for at least another year.’ He returned Lucas’s smile, turning the conversation into a joke between them: ‘If you want any help with the oil fields out in Abu Sadar, call on me. My Arabic is rusty, but I can always brush it up.’
‘Didn’t know you spoke Arabic. The young fellers all speak English out there, but the old guys never bother to learn. You’d think they would, dealing with us all the time.’
‘Just what we English used to say in our Empire days.’
‘You being whimsical again? You can’t joke about the Arabs. They’re going to be a pain in the ass to us some day. Well, now we’re off to Paris – Edith and Meg want to go. Never liked the French myself. They’re a pain in the ass, too. Never can trust them.’
‘What about the English?’
Lucas winked, refusing to take the bait. ‘Time we were leaving.’
Farewells were said. The Beauforts hugged Michael, squeezing affection into him as if giving him blood. Nina hugged and kissed her parents and sister; Tim watched carefully, alert for any sign that she wanted to go home with them. He shook hands with Lucas, kissed Edith on the cheek. Then he had to say goodbye to Margaret.