Tessa Hadley: The Past

Harriet was much better; she was very quiet. A card had arrived for her one morning, inside an envelope addressed in a foreign handwriting: she picked it up from the hall floor under the letter box before anyone else saw it, and took it into her bedroom to read, shutting both doors quietly. What was she hoping for? Some word that could unfasten what she’d done? The card was a picture of Malmesbury Abbey, with its ruined windows in the clerestory: perhaps Pilar and Roland had visited there on their way home. On the back Pilar had only written: The tests were negative. Harriet was amazed. How could Pilar imagine that she still cared one way or another about those tests? Why would she care, if she couldn’t have Pilar? Harriet wouldn’t ever have believed, in her life before, that she was capable of such selfish love, cold greed. But there it was.

The estate agent came one afternoon to go over the house and give them a valuation. They had spent all morning cleaning and making everything look nice, and Alice had put out flowers again in all the rooms. She noticed that someone was sitting out in the man’s car on the drive; he explained that this was his father, who wasn’t much involved with the business any longer, but liked to come with him for the ride sometimes. He’d been forced to give up driving himself, because of problems with his peripheral vision; frustrating for him, his son said, because he was very fit and active otherwise. Alice said his father was welcome to come inside, she’d make him a cup of tea. But apparently he preferred waiting in the car.

Mikey Waller sat there for a while, and then when the sun came out and the rain stopped spitting he got out to stretch his legs, walking down the road to take a quick look inside the church, because his hobby was church architecture. His thatch of sandy-white hair was neatly trimmed and his colour was ruddy as if he might have high blood pressure; he was one of those tall, shambling men who look too raw when they’re young and then, without trying for it, accumulate gravity and style later in life. He didn’t take long inside the church, not wanting to keep his son waiting. When he turned into the rectory drive again, he saw that a young woman — anyway, she looked young enough to him — had come out of the house with a bowl of washing, children’s clothes, which she was pegging on the line. He watched her, though he had to be careful not to seem to stare, because of the problems with his field of vision. He supposed she must be one of Jill Crane’s daughters. How many children were there: three? Or four? This one was petite and plump and decisive; she didn’t look much like her mother, as far as he could see — the same red-gold hair perhaps. So the family were going to sell the house, after all these years. Mikey regretted this. He felt a special attachment to the old place, and had always liked to think of the Cranes using it. This was because he’d loved their mother once, for a long time. She’d gone away, though, and he’d had to make his life without her.

My most heartfelt thanks to Dan Franklin and Caroline Dawnay, Jennifer Barth and Joy Harris, who once again all lent their wisdom and their kindness. I have borrowed my structure — The Present, The Past, The Present — shamelessly from Elizabeth Bowen’s superb novel The House in Paris , and I have borrowed some details of les événements in Paris, May 1968, equally shamelessly from Mavis Gallant’s fascinating account of them in her Paris Notebooks. I’m always grateful to my university, Bath Spa, which supports all kinds of art-endeavour and makes a writing life easier — and for my friends and colleagues and students there who care about good books. I’m grateful to Katherine Ailes and Sophie Scard and Deirdre Molina, for such thoughtful reading. And to Eric for everything.