Уильям Николсон - Motherland

‘What?’ she says, searching his face as if to find it there. ‘What in him? Why?’

‘I think he’d call it the darkness,’ says Larry. ‘I don’t understand it. But it’s been there as long as I’ve known him.’

‘Even at school?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘If only he’d talk to me about it.’

‘I think the problem there,’ says Larry slowly, ‘is that he feels he’s already let you down. He feels so much guilt about you, he doesn’t want to burden you with even more. He loves you so much, it must be torture to him, knowing he’s making you unhappy too. I think he’s trying to keep it away from you, his unhappiness. Like a contagious disease, you know? He’s quarantining himself.’

‘Then what am I to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Larry. ‘I suppose you could seek consolation elsewhere.’

‘Elsewhere? Where?’

‘Hugo, maybe.’

‘Hugo?’ She laughs at the sheer absurdity of it. ‘Why Hugo of all people?’ Then she guesses. ‘Pamela told you.’

She sees from his face that she’s right.

‘Oh, God! I should have talked to her. I just couldn’t think how to explain. Poor Hugo has had this idea he’s in love with me for ages and ages, and when he was telling me about Ed and how he had to stop work I got upset and cried a little, and he kissed me. Pamela had just got back from school and she saw. What did she tell you? Is she terribly upset? Oh, what fools we all are.’

‘She thought you might leave her to go off with Hugo.’

‘Go off with Hugo? He’s a child! It’s all a fantasy of his. No, I’d never go off with Hugo.’

‘That’s what I told her.’

Even so, the sweet relief is running through his veins, making his skin tingle. He hadn’t realised how afraid he had become of that kiss.

‘Anyway, I never kissed Hugo. He kissed me.’

‘What does he think of it all now?’

‘Oh, he’s fine. We’re still good friends. I just told him to stop being silly. He’s so used to his little game of unreciprocated love that I think he was almost relieved to go back to the way things were.’

His little game of unreciprocated love. There’s more than one of those.

He sees that she follows his thoughts. How could she not? It’s been so many years now.

‘How’s Geraldine?’ she says; even though she asked in the car, and he replied then, ‘Geraldine’s fine.’

‘Geraldine and I,’ he says this time, ‘are as unhappy together as you and Ed. Different couple, different problems, same misery.’

Kitty’s face shows sympathy but not surprise.

‘I did think, in France.’

‘We keep up appearances. But we more or less lead separate lives now.’

Kitty reaches across the table and takes his hand.

‘How do you cope with it?’ she says.

‘I work. Work can take up all your time, if you want it to.’

‘Like Ed.’

‘Ed’s angry with himself. The worst of my situation is I’m angry with Geraldine. I know I shouldn’t be. I half understand why she is the way she is. I’m sorry for her. But more than everything else I’m angry with her. She won’t do the one simple thing that makes marriages possible. She won’t love me.’

‘Does that mean what I think it means?’

‘We sleep in separate rooms.’

‘Oh, Larry.’

‘I’m ashamed of myself for minding so much. But I do.’

‘Oh, Larry.’

‘So one way or another, we’ve both made a bit of a botch of our lives, haven’t we?’

She goes on stroking his hand, gazing into his eyes.

‘You were the one I wanted,’ he says.

It seems so easy to say it now.

‘I know,’ she says.

‘Have you always known?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I think so.’

‘But you love Ed. Even though he doesn’t know how to be happy.’

‘Sometimes I think that’s why I love him.’

‘So if I’d just been a bit more miserable, might you have gone for me instead?’

‘Probably,’ she says, smiling.

‘I could start now.’

He pulls a sad face.

‘Darling Larry.’

‘Don’t be too nice to me. I don’t think I can take it.’

‘I could have been happy with you,’ she says.

‘Well, there it is,’ he says. ‘What might have been.’

She goes on looking at him, and he sees so much love there that he doesn’t want either of them to say any more. This moment is so sweet to him that he’d ask for nothing else in life if only it would go on for ever.

Then she says, ‘If Hugo can kiss me, I don’t see why you can’t. I’ve known you far longer.’

He gets up from his side of the table and goes round to hers. She stands, and puts her face up to his, timid but willing, like a young girl. He kisses her very gently at first. Then he draws her into his arms and they kiss as he has longed to kiss her ever since the first moment he set eyes on her, ten years ago.

And so they part at last.

‘I can’t help it,’ he says. ‘I’ve always loved you, and I always will.’

‘Dearest darling Larry. Don’t ask me to say it. I’ll never do anything to hurt Ed. You know that.’

‘Of course I do.’

‘But this’ – she strokes his arms, smiling at him, meaning the acknowledgement of his love – ‘this makes it easier.’

‘For me too.’

And it does. Nothing can change. Their circumstances make anything more between them impossible. But everything has changed. Larry feels filled with a joyful lightness. Now, and to the day either he or Kitty dies, he will never be alone.

‘That was it,’ she says. But she looks so much happier. ‘That was what might have been. Now back to what is.’

‘What system of budgetary controls do you operate, Mr Cornford?’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Larry. ‘I don’t follow you.’

Donohue, the young man leading the McKinsey team, frowns and leans back in his chair. He exchanges glances with Neill and Hollis, his colleagues. All three wear dark suits and white shirts with dark ties. All three are younger than Larry.

‘Purchasing, transport, stock management, maintenance contracts – every part of the running of the company incurs costs, and these costs have to be managed. But of course you know that.’ Donohue smiles suddenly and brightly. Larry waits to be told something he doesn’t know. ‘I’m simply asking what systems you have in place, as managing director, to ensure that your costs are kept as low as possible.’

The question annoys Larry. Donohue annoys Larry. The team from McKinsey & Co, brought in by the parent company in New Orleans, annoys Larry.

‘I don’t assume,’ he answers carefully, ‘that the lowest costs will always deliver the greatest benefit.’

‘But you must have some system for monitoring costs,’ says Donohue.

‘It’s called my staff,’ says Larry. ‘Each purchase is made by a member of staff who knows his business and has the best interests of the company at heart.’

‘I see,’ says Donohue, making a note. ‘Would it be correct to say that your staff are only lightly supervised?’

‘You could say that,’ says Larry. ‘Or you could say our staff are greatly trusted.’

‘And what if it were to turn out that your trust had been abused? Indeed, has it ever so turned out?’

‘We all fall short of the glory of God, Mr Donohue,’ says Larry. ‘The question is, what are we to do about it? We can set up what you call a monitoring system, which tells people what they should be doing, and detects when they’re failing to do it, and presumably punishes them in some way. Or we can give them an area of responsibility, and ask them to work out how best to operate for themselves, and rely on their pride in their work and their loyalty to the company to deliver the best possible results.’