Tessa Hadley - The Past

— Someone’s in a mood, Fran apologised.

— I wanted to do cooking, Ivy said. — Mum, you promised I could.

— Darling, I wish you’d been helping me, Alice said. — Why didn’t you say? My cake’s a disaster, it’s flat as a pancake. Listen, Janice, if you’d rather have a biscuit …

Janice reassured her insincerely.

Alice contemplated her cake. — Actually, it is a biscuit.

Fran and Alice were so eagerly hospitable — fussing round Janice, bringing out the old story about the lady with the flowing hair in the teacups (Janice was expert in antiques) — that Ivy could tell they wished Janice hadn’t come over. She was tall and bulky with a small head and pink skin and small quick blue eyes glancing everywhere; her surprising shock of yellow silky curls was beginning to grey and her silk shirt was tight over her bosom, its button straining under pressure. — Talking of moods, she said, — Claude’s taken to his bed. He claims he’s exhausted after the journey even though I drove all the way.

— It is exhausting, Alice sympathised. — I’m a back-seat driver and I know just how he feels. In fact I’m exhausted just thinking about driving. I could climb right in there with Claude. Well, not literally with Claude, obviously.

Janice said Alice was welcome to him, warning that he snored and kicked like a horse. Cross-legged on the floor, Arthur was painting his fingernails with Molly’s clear varnish, dipping the little brush in the bottle with scrupulous concentration. — Doesn’t anyone think they ought to stop him? Ivy said wearily. — Isn’t he bound to get varnish everywhere? That clear stuff is a waste of time anyway. Nothing looks any different afterwards.

— It strengthens your nails, said Arthur.

— He’s making a lovely job of it, Fran said. — Molly won’t mind.

Arthur lifted his eyes from where he was dabbing the brush on his nails, reproaching his sister without words, soulfully: only she knew how innocent he wasn’t. — Why didn’t you bring Mitzi? he asked Janice.

— Yes, where is Mitzi? Alice joined in merrily, handing Ivy a slice of cake on a plate.

Janice had just taken a bite of cake, and had to put her hand in front of her mouth while she chewed, signalling distress in her expression, before she could tell them. Too much was at stake to be borne: Ivy dropped the plate — one of the same set as the teacups. There seemed to be a cartoonish moment of suspension, such was the tension, before it bounced and landed upside down on the rug and didn’t break; then when she jumped up she pressed it onto its cake under her shoe, and heard it crack.

— Look what you’ve done now! Fran accused.

Alice said it didn’t matter, there were plenty more plates and as far as the cake was concerned it was for the best. — There aren’t more plates, cried Ivy. — These are the only ones!

Janice, swallowing, was distressed. — Didn’t you know? she exclaimed. — We lost Mitzi! I thought you knew.

— We didn’t know. We don’t really talk to anyone. We talked to Simon Cummins. He didn’t say anything.

Janice had to mop at her tears with a tissue pulled from her sleeve while she told them the story; Arthur all the while appeared absorbed in wafting his nails to dry them, the way he’d learned from watching Molly.

— It was while we were down here at Easter. She just disappeared one morning and at first I didn’t think much of it, she was always off on her little escapades. But this time she didn’t come back. We hunted for her everywhere for days. Claude thinks she ran out in front of a car, and it’s true that she was awfully silly about cars. But I believe she was kidnapped. The pedigrees are worth an awful lot of money. I tell myself she’s living the life of luxury with doting new owners somewhere, sleeping on velvet cushions and eating chicken breast and grilled tomato. Do you remember how she loved grilled tomato? Though I still think she’d be pining for us — and how would they find out, about the tomato? We stayed on for days longer than we meant to, because I was just haunted by the idea that she would turn up and we wouldn’t be there. I used to think every night that I could hear her scratching at the door and whining, and in the end Claude refused to go down and look, he said I was going potty. It’s only a dog, he said.

— It wasn’t only a dog, cried Alice. — It was Mitzi!

— If she’d been knocked down, Fran said, picking up the pieces of the plate, — surely someone would have found her body by now?

— That’s what I think. But Claude says people who kill dogs don’t want to face the music, they drive off with the body and get rid of it at the other end of the country.

— Claude’s got a vivid imagination, hasn’t he?

— You do hear the most amazing stories though, Alice said, — about dogs coming back to their owners after years and years.

— Oh I know, Janice said. — It’s what I’m counting on.

Ivy was aware then of Arthur gazing at her expectantly, and knew she ought to stop them hoping for what wasn’t possible: she opened her mouth to speak. But at that moment Fran started sweeping the cake mess crossly from around Ivy with the dustpan and brush, prodding her feet out of the way with the brush-end as though she didn’t care about the dog at all. Looking down at her mother on her knees, bent over the sweeping, Ivy was suddenly protective of her secret: in all its ugliness it belonged to her, and she didn’t want the grown-ups taking it over, sorting it out and cleaning it up, not yet — although the words unspoken felt stifling in her mouth. Arthur wouldn’t say anything, she was sure, if she didn’t. She knew that, by refraining, she shut herself out from decency and safety. While they were all still being sorry about Mitzi she announced outrageously that she needed more cake. — No one round here seems to appreciate I’m actually starving to death.

Janice reproached her: she shouldn’t use the word starving when there were children in African countries who really were. Then Alice said Janice made her feel guilty, because she for one was always using it. When Ivy had eaten her dry cake, which almost choked her, she went upstairs again, stomping on every step, burdened, feeling herself impossible. She tried on lipstick at Alice’s dressing table, pressing too hard and breaking off the little tube of red paste. Then she wandered next door and rummaged in Harriet’s chest of drawers, found the diary hidden under her clothes. Harriet’s writing was very small, covering page after page. There didn’t seem to be anything secret in it, just stuff about walks and birds and people. Sat next to P. tonight at supper. Am I happy? I think I’m happy, but it’s close to madness.

Ivy scribbled over the pages with the broken lipstick. She wrote fuk upside down, spelling it deliberately wrongly, and then added Arthur’s name in sprawling uncertain baby letters which were nothing like Arthur’s actual rather careful writing. Harriet’s white pillowcase and sheet were smeared with the vermilion lipstick.

That afternoon Alice went out for a walk by herself. She wanted to be alone: she had chafed at their conversation with Janice in the drawing room, so limited and stale. When the others came back from swimming it wasn’t any better; Pilar and Fran were actually discussing house prices. In company Alice was so often disappointed; she dreamed of an ideal sociability, when her most pressing and important thoughts would flow out easily into words and be understood, and she would be equally attuned to the real thoughts of others. Once, she and Roly used to talk on and on for hours about everything — religion and art and death — understanding each other completely. But these days he was so guarded, and put up all his cleverness and his knowledge like a barrier against her, to keep her out. Since he’d arrived at Kington with Pilar, Alice had never had him to herself for a moment.