The Anniversary Read online

  'You're always getting stuck behind some damn tractor thing,' he would complain, impervious to the fact that tractors usually turned off the road within a quarter of a mile or so, while tailbacks on the motorways moved far slower and stretched out for interminable miles. He almost appeared to enjoy them, drumming on the dashboard with his fingers, exchanging exaggerated, comical faces of woe with fellow sufferers in the cars around them.

  In the same way he seemed tied to the crowds and traffic of London by an umbilical cord of emotional needs. The furthest he had been prepared to move, when they had felt they could buy a house thirty years ago, was to Reading. This was not Frances's idea of the country, but she had still been in love with him then and the house would do for a few years, till they could afford something better. But that had been, as it turned out, one of their most prosperous periods. Giles had secured his first West End part, in a lightweight play that for some inexplicable reason ran and ran, so that, together with the tiny bits of money she had been carefully putting aside for five years, they were able to pay in full the £4,000 the house had cost. (No right-minded building society would have given an actor a mortgage.) Frances managed to find some work translating correspondence for a local firm exporting to Italy, which she did while Anya was at her morning play group and Nicky took a nap. The work was badly paid, but the money covered their modest daily spending needs, with a little scrimping and saving.

  'A hundred and ninety thousand pounds!' she had repeated to the keen new man in the insurance office last week.

  'Oh yes, Mrs Kilworth,' he assured her. 'It must be worth at least that, even with the present difficulties in the housing market. Five years ago it was probably worth well over 200 K. You really must not under-insure. If you had a fire . . .'

  She found it difficult to attend to him. When they had bought it, the house had overlooked fields at the back, giving at least an illusion of the country. But in the early eighties new housing developments had begun to encroach on them, nearer and nearer. Now the view from the main bedroom and the kitchen below it – a view once moving in a cycle through the colours of the agricultural year, and framed by willows along a stream – had been replaced by the severe backs of identical houses, row upon row, whose windows were too small and whose roofs were too shallow. The stream had been culverted, and the willows cut down – one agonising afternoon – by an indifferent man with a chain-saw.

  This leap in monetary value was ludicrous, almost obscene. Because the house was much nastier now than when they had bought it. And the streets were no longer safe. When Anya and Nicky were small, she had never worried about them playing with their friends up and down the road, or on the small area of grass around which the houses were grouped. Now, whenever Katya was just a little late from school she would begin to worry.

  After Junction 15 she bypassed Swindon and headed for Cirencester on the A419. She thought at first that she had missed the lay-by where she wanted to stop, but spotted it at last and pulled in. It was disconcerting not to find it where she had expected it to be.

  I know this road so well, I could drive it with my eyes shut, she thought. But I suppose it must be three months since I was last down at St Martins. What can I have been doing with myself all that time?

  She got out, stretching slowly and luxuriously, like a cat. Then she locked the car. And not long ago I would not have done that, she thought. She pushed through the dusty, sickly-looking bushes that edged the lay-by and climbed the slight rise beyond. North and west of her the soft lines of the Cotswolds rose, looking larger than they really were in the horizontal light of early morning which dramatised their contours.

  * * *

  'I'm going to find some real mountains to climb,' Hugh said.

  They were eating a clotted cream tea in one of the golden Cotswold villages, sitting outside a cottage in the unexpected sunshine of July, 1958. Their bicycles were propped against the low garden wall, the over-full saddle bags bulging into the hollyhocks and foxgloves.

  She was only half listening to him. It was, although they did not know it then, their last cycling holiday together. Since their early teens they had taken cycle trips every Easter and summer, even after Frances's acquisition of the MG. Last night they had stayed at the youth hostel in Gloucester. They planned to make their way through the Cotswold lanes at a leisurely pace, then go on to Stratford and buy standing-room tickets for whatever play was showing. The tickets cost only half a crown, and sometimes the usherettes would show you to an unoccupied seat at the first interval. Once, they had found themselves in the front row of the dress circle.

  'There's a field trip going out to Kashmir. I'm going to try to stay on afterwards and do some real climbing after the others come back.'

  'Won't it be frightfully expensive?'

  'I'm going to use my prize money, and Natasha said she would help. Mother, of course, is dead against it. Dad just humphs.'

  'Mmm.' Thinking about Stratford had filled her mind even more intensely with Giles, and she felt her stomach churn. It was just possible they might run into him in Stratford. He had some sort of job at the theatre for the vacation – selling programmes or something. Would they see him? Would he notice her? She was so insignificant compared with his usual glamorous girlfriends. Dark, studious, shy, she was acutely embarrassed whenever she had to mix with his set, who all seemed larger, more vivid than anyone she had ever known. They called each other 'darling', were wantonly careless about lectures and tutorials, flouted the rules about staying out of college late, left Oxford without permission.

  One day in the seventh week of last term, Giles had taken her with a crowd of his friends to London to see a show. She persuaded another girl to tell lies to their tutor, saying she was ill and would have to miss her mediaeval history tutorial. The entire evening was ruined for her by her guilt and terror.

  'Look at my little bluestocking,' Giles said, parading her before his friends and covertly caressing her, so that she blushed an ugly red.

  They had dinner afterwards at Rules, and celebrities of the stage were pointed out to her. Giles's OUDS cronies themselves could not quite conceal their awe. Then they went on, somewhat drunk, to a Soho night-club, which was horrible. Frances thought the floor show ugly and degrading, and a swarthy, middle-aged man pawed at her in the dark corridor near the Ladies.

  They began the drive back to Oxford at dawn, tired and quarrelsome. Giles seemed morose and withdrawn, so that Frances sat, biting back tears, looking out of the window, past Beaconsfield, past High Wycombe, into Oxford through Wheatley. She asked to be dropped near the Martyrs' Memorial, and wandered about disconsolately until well after the college gates were opened. The last week of term had been spent trying to avoid the Dean, in the fear that somehow she would reveal her guilt in her face.

  * * *

  At the end of that summer Hugh made his Kashmir journey, arriving back late for the start of term at Cambridge. But, as always, he was forgiven. He had managed to lose himself in the mountains. Had fallen in with a remote local tribe, and lived at their village for a month. By Christmas he had sold an account of his adventure, with photographs, to one of the major Sunday papers.

  The following summer Hugh graduated, staying in England only long enough to attend Frances's wedding to Giles in the chapel at St Martins. Then he had left for a two-year expedition up the Amazon.

  * * *

  Giles Kilworth did not sleep as well these days as he used to. In the past he had stayed up till the early hours, keyed up after a performance or drinking with chums when he was resting from work. The moment he laid his head on the pillow – unless, of course, he was otherwise occupied – he had always been able to fall asleep immediately, not waking until a civilised hour of ten or eleven, in time for a leisurely shower and a half-breakfast, half-lunch with the papers.

  Lately – and he could not quite trace the beginning of the change – he had found it increasingly difficult to fall asleep. And then he would wake in the dark reaches of
the night, or in the early morning. Partly, it was due to the twinges of pain he sometimes felt in his hips and knees. Stupid, really. Nothing to worry about. But just enough discomfort to keep him awake. Partly, too, he was keyed up about the filming of the new series of Vet in Hot Water. The first series was just finishing its run on ITV, and was a smash hit. He'd never had so much fan mail in his life. Odd, when you thought about it. He'd always seen himself as a serious actor, and he'd done his Hamlet in rep in Birmingham and his Romeo (rather late, when he was nearly forty) in Huddersfield. He'd had supporting roles at Stratford and the National, but somehow had not made it to the top at either. He was looking forward to his Lear some day, but not yet, for heaven's sake!

  The trouble was, there were so few good parts for Shakespearean actors in their fifties. Though Larry Olivier had got away with it. There was Malvolio, of course. And Shylock, though Giles wasn't the right build for that – you ought to be gaunt and hungry-looking, and he had put on rather a lot of weight recently. As his agent kept pointing out to him, quite unnecessarily.

  Caesar? Mark Antony? Not that anybody seemed to want to do the Roman plays at the moment. Derek J. was a lucky bastard getting Claudius for that great long Robert Graves thing on telly back in the seventies. A toga is quite flattering if you are, well, a bit on the heavy side.

  There were other possibilities, of course. He'd like to try his hand at Ibsen's Master Builder, but Brian was doing a run with that. Up in the north, though. He shuddered at the thought of a Scottish tour. Those freezing digs.

  Really, it was much better to stay in London. That way, people didn't forget about you. What a stupid idea that had been of Frances's, years ago when he was just getting known in the right circles – some idea that they should live in the country. He could commute to London when he had a show, she said. Perhaps have a little flat there for sleeping over. The point was, you had to be seen about the place, all the time. He couldn't make her understand that.

  He had never supposed he'd be so good at comedy, though he had done his share of the usual frothy things in the early days. And there had been the Noel Coward about fourteen years ago, when that stupid little cow had tried to make him leave Frances and marry her, for God's sake! He'd paid for the abortion and sent her packing. Nasty little piece of work. She'd only been trying to use him. You saw her all the time on the telly these days, in some soap, playing a brassy barmaid. That was about her level, he thought with satisfaction. She looks older than Frances now, though she must be nearly twenty years younger. Not much older than Anya. Saw her the other day at a party. That was a lucky escape, that time.

  One more rehearsal tomorrow, then we'll get the last episode in the can next week. He turned restlessly on his side, grunting as a pain stabbed briefly in his back. He wasn't absolutely happy about the new series. There was a different screenwriter, who just didn't have Max's zest. And then Judy, that clever little kid with a face like a monkey, who'd played the part of his assistant, had already been sewed up tight in a stage contract she couldn't wriggle out of, so they'd had to drop her character from the second series. Didn't think it would matter, he thought grimly, but somehow the whole thing seemed to be falling flat without her, even though hers was only supposed to be a minor part. She has absolutely no sex appeal, not for me anyway, but she's a real pro, bright as the proverbial button.

  The worrying thing was that there wasn't anything definite fixed up to follow this second series. Of course, with the reviews and the ratings, something was bound to turn up soon. Still, he hadn't been happy when Frances had said that she was thinking of giving up her part-time lectureship at the poly.

  'Now that you're doing so well, Giles,' she said, 'and with only Katya left at home, I thought I might stop. It takes so much time and energy, all the preparation and marking and examining, when I'm only paid on an hourly basis for the hours I'm in college lecturing. No pension. No paid holidays. No sick pay.'

  'Not for me either, darling.'

  'But you knew that when you went on the stage. My full-time colleagues at the poly have everything very nicely provided. It's just the mugs like me – married women working part-time – who are exploited.'

  'Now don't go all feminist,' he said, in the beguiling comic tone he used so effectively in the series.

  She looked at him coolly.

  'There are other things I would like to do. I think that it's just about my turn. At last.'

  That was unfair of her. They'd agreed right from the start that she would take all the part-time jobs she could until he made his name. Of course she had to give up that notion of going to Italy to do a PhD – on apprentices in Renaissance art studios, or whatever it was. Boring trash. What with Anya arriving while they were still undergraduates. It wasn't his fault. She said she wanted to put his career first.

  The trouble with women of Frances's age was that they were both too young and too old. They were too young to be like their mothers' generation, accepting their place in the scheme of things, staying at home and supporting their husbands. And they were too old to have the freedoms of younger women. But now some of them were trying to grab those freedoms in middle age. It was laughable.

  Uncomfortably, he thought of Natasha, who disproved his theory. Now Irina, Frances's mother, was the old-fashioned wifely type, irritating though she was. But her grandmother! By all accounts, Natasha was quite a girl in her day, back in post World War I Paris. Part of a real bohemian living-in-a-garret set, from the tales told by those odd characters who used to wander in and out of St Martins. All dead now, probably.

  * * *

  'Natasha Ivanovna, she comes from great family of Russia, you understand, my friend.'

  The man, a morose White Russian in threadbare clothes, has warmed to Giles over the vodka bottle, in the little back sitting room at St Martins. 'She saw terrible things in Revolution, terrible, when she was just girl. All her family slaughtered by those pigs of Bolsheviks. Not clean with gun, oh no. They make long time fun with swords taken from wall of Petrograd mansion. This she watches. Her mother, her sisters, her little brother. Her father is already dead, you understand. They climb over his dead body to get into house.'

  He pours himself another glass, staring red-eyed into the fire.

  'When they finish with others of family, they turn to her, Natasha Ivanovna. All this time they hold her and she struggles. She thinks, I will throw myself on sword and it will be finished.'

  'But she didn't.'

  'No, my friend. Natasha Ivanovna is very beautiful. They do not use sword. They rape her. All of them. I spit on them.' He spits into the fire.

  'But how did she escape?'

  'One of this rabble – he was once servant of Greshlovs. He is ashamed. While pigs of Bolsheviks are stealing bottles from cellar, he manages to make escape her.'

  For a long time he is silent, turning the glass of clear liquid round and round in his hand, staring into the past.

  'When she is in Paris, she becomes part of bohemian set – artists and musicians, living on Left Bank. She is now painter. She comes also to quarter of émigrés, where myself I am living. She is become very wild, you understand, my friend. For some it was like this, for others – nothing but grieving. Once, there is party at Russian club, and someone begins to play balalaika, very sad songs, mourning our lost Mother Russia. No, says Natasha Ivanovna, play fast dances, play for me!

  'And she dances on table amongst glasses and food, wearing nothing but her petticoat. Nothing, my friend! This you must believe.'

  It is certainly true, what he says. His eyes gleam at the memory and his lips are wet.

  * * *

  Glumly, unable to sleep in the brighter light now slipping beneath the thick curtains, Giles thought of Frances. Certainly she had never shown any sign of dancing on the table in nothing but her petticoat, like Natasha. But some women did turn odd, didn't they, at her sort of age?

  The latest red-head, stirring and moaning a little in the bed beside him, broke his train
of thought. He had completely forgotten about her. Disconcerted, he eyed her pink freckled shoulder with distaste. High time to end that particular liaison. He would slip quietly out of her bed now and go to his club for a shower and breakfast before tootling along to the rehearsal room in Ealing. He would send the aspiring starlet a graceful letter of farewell, with some roses and a bottle of bubbly. Something fond and fatherly, making her see that it was only a diversion, helping her to find her feet in London.

  He started to ease himself out of the bed, groping for his slippers. A large, firm hand grasped him about the upper arm in a grip it would have been difficult to break without rudeness.

  'Darling?' said the red-head.

  With a groan, Giles sank back on to the pillows.

  * * *

  Irina Appleton, daughter of Natasha and mother of Frances, was not quite awake, but she was going over her lists in her mind:

  Send Katya to village to collect extra cheese

  Check enough glasses

  Get Mrs D to wash glasses

  Get Mr D to put out tables

  Tell Olga to lay tables in garden

  Mabel to make salads

  Mabel to bake quiches

  Mabel to see about tea urn

  Get cakes from Sally

  Nicholas to put up signs on drive about parking

  Mabel to phone wine merchant about one case short

  Sally to set up old dairy as crèche

  Tony Nicholas & Paul to put up marquee

  She stopped trying to pretend she was still asleep. In the other bed William's breathing was deep and regular. Fretfully, she felt he had fallen ill just to spite her. Not retiring from his solicitor's practice until he was over seventy, when he knew how difficult it was to deal with St Martins and Mother, despite Mabel's splendid help. He could have been some use to her during these last ten years. Then he had a stroke and became just one more worry for her. Thank goodness he didn't seem to mind Mabel nursing him.