Caroline Graham - A Place Of Safety

Largely because of the terrible disaster Lionel’s actions had brought upon both herself and Louise, Ann was weaned without too much difficulty from her plan to buy him somewhere to live and to offer financial support. At first she had protested, saying she couldn’t give him nothing. But, as Louise pointed out, even if she gave him nothing it was still ten times more than he had ever given her. And when Louise heard that Ann was also determined to set up a proper, inflation-proof pension for Hetty, she explained that accomplishing both and getting another house for herself was out of the question.

Ann visited the Old Rectory only once in the company of her solicitor. She selected the few pieces of furniture and personal things that she wished to keep and he arranged for them to be stored and for everything else to be sold. The whole transaction took less than an hour and she could not wait to get away. They also briefly discussed her will which was kept at his office. She intended to make a new one and they made an appointment for early the next month.

As things fell out, Ann never saw Lionel again. By the time he got round to visiting the hospital she had recovered enough to tell her doctor she could not cope with even a moment of his company and admission was refused. He did not show up a second time.

A letter from Lucy and Breakbean, Causton’s only legal aid solicitors, suggesting he was entitled to half a share of the Old Rectory was answered by Ann’s solicitor, Taylor Reading, in no uncertain terms. A threat of further action on Lionel’s part came to nothing. The following December Ann had rather a pathetic Christmas card giving an address in Slough, to which she did not respond. And that was that, really.

A few years later someone who knew Lionel told Ann they had seen him as they were leaving the National Theatre after an evening performance. Once more wearing his dog collar, he was helping to give out soup and sandwiches to the homeless on the Embankment. But it was only a glimpse and they admitted later they could easily have been mistaken.

The actual date of Tom and Joyce Barnaby’s silver wedding fell on Sunday, 12th September. But as, like most people, they had married on Saturday they decided they would rather celebrate the day itself. And anyway, as Cully pointed out, any merrymaking worth its salt would surely stretch to cover both.

The day dawned, rather chilly and with only a small amount of watery sunshine. It was a funny morning and an awkward afternoon. The time dragged. After breakfast Barnaby put the crockery in the dishwasher and Joyce went to have her hair done. When she came back they had coffee and ploughed through the Saturday papers and it still wasn’t time for lunch.

‘Do you like my hair like this?’

‘It’s fine.’

‘I thought, as it was such a special day, I should have something different.’

‘It looks lovely.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘I liked it the old way.’ Joyce gave a sort of moan. Kicked the papers off the sofa and put her feet up. Then put them down again.

‘I wish it was eight o’clock,’ said Barnaby.

‘Well, it isn’t eight o’clock. It’s twenty to twelve.’

‘When are we going to have our presents, again?’

‘Seven, when the kids come and we open the champagne.’

‘Can I have mine now?’

‘No.’

Barnaby sighed, folded the arts section of the Independent , went into the hall, put on his scarf and old jacket and went outside. He got a border fork from the garden shed and started loosening the earth around the herbaceous perennials. Then he got his comfrey bucket and poured the foul-smelling liquid around the roots.

The trouble with today was, he decided, that it had been invested with a weight of romantic and sentimental relevance that it was just not equipped to carry. It was a special day, granted, but it was also an ordinary day to be lived in a comfortable, ordinary manner.

Breakfast in bed, which he could hardly remember having in his life, was not a success. Joyce brought him a tray with a lovely rose in a crystal vase and he sat wedged bolt upright with pillows against the headboard, trying to Flora his croissant without spilling the coffee.

Joyce sat next to him with her tray, eating grapefruit, shielding the side of it with her hand so the juice would not squirt all over the place and saying, more than once, ‘Isn’t this nice?’ Reaching across the bed to turn the radio on, she knocked the rose over.

And so it had continued. Barnaby suddenly realised how his daughter felt during the days when she was coming up to a first night. Cully had described it to him once. Trying to sleep as late as you could, dawdling through breakfast, drifting down to the theatre at midday even though there was nothing to do and you would only be in the way. Finding someone to have lunch with, maybe taking in a movie then coming out with three more hours to kill. Trying to rest, going over your lines. The last hour rushing past you like the wind.

He and Joyce had slipped into the same sort of limbo. It was ridiculous. Why couldn’t it be just like any normal Saturday? Barnaby saw his wife looking through the kitchen window. He waved and she responded with a rather taut smile, touching her hair. He started to sing as he returned the bucket to the comfrey patch, ‘What a difference a day makes ...’

The crate in the garage had disappeared. He had been getting quite excited about that. When he pointed out it was no longer there, Joyce told him it was a chair belonging to a member of her drama group who was moving house and didn’t have room for it. Yesterday the man he had given it to had come and picked it up. So that was that.

Barnaby packed his bucket with more comfrey, filled it with water and started cutting back a huge cotoneaster that was getting vastly above itself. The rest of the morning passed so pleasantly it seemed no time at all before Joyce was calling him in for lunch.

Afterwards she said she had to go out so Barnaby dozed, watched some sport on the box, dozed some more and made himself a cup of tea at tea time. Joyce didn’t come back till nearly six. She had been to the movies, she said, Wag the Dog , which was so brilliant they must get the video.

Barnaby did not ask why he hadn’t been invited to the movies. They were each getting through this odd, unfamiliar sort of day in their own manner, himself by doing what he usually did on his day off but sighing rather more, Joyce filling in time by going out and about.

By six o’clock both were in their bedroom getting dressed. Barnaby had on a rather stiffly starched white shirt and dark blue suit plus waistcoat. As he was pulling on his shiny black Oxfords, he watched Joyce putting on her make-up in front of a magnifying mirror, brightly illuminated by an Anglepoise. She was wearing a coffee-coloured petticoat trimmed with Viennese lace, which Cully had long ago christened Mum’s Freudian slip.

It suddenly struck her husband that his anniversary gift, so carefully thought of, beautifully designed and lavishly wrapped, was nothing but a frivol. Luxurious but of no real use whatsoever. Where in the world, apart from illustrations in old books of fairy tales and thirties movies, did women sit holding a mirror in front of their face with one hand and combing their hair with the other? They needed both hands and an excellent light. He sighed.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ said Joyce.

She had bought a new suit for the occasion. Cyclamen with black braid. Chanel-ish. The colour looked harder than it had in the shop and her lipstick didn’t match. Her earrings were already pinching but they were the only ones that looked right. Bearing in mind that make-up had to last the evening through, she had put on rather more than usual and now wondered if she should take it off and start again. Everyone said the older you were, the less you needed. She only just stopped herself sighing as well. That’s all the evening needed. Two of them at it.