The tea is still too hot to drink. I should have asked for water. And I don’t know who will pay for it. “I didn’t bring my purse. I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“I always pay for the first round. But only on Fridays, and only if we’re not performing in the evening. I’m pleased you’ve come, Gwen. You’re an asset to the orchestra. If there’s any problem at all, you know you can always call on me.”
He gives me a little pat, as if I’m a good pet, and then moves on to Sonia, a Russian clarinettist who is in London for six months, at the orchestra’s invitation. She wears red lipstick and a tight black dress. Stockdale sees me watching and gives a wink before he turns to her.
On my first free day I go to Hyde Park. It’s a long way from my lodgings, an hour and a half’s walk, but I miss the birds. There are only two sycamore trees in my street, and although the small parks in my neighbourhood do attract some birds—Pigeons, Crows, the odd Blackbird or Sparrow, and of course Starlings—most of them live elsewhere. I bought birdseed with my first pay, and put some of it on the windowsill, only to have to brush it off a few days later. But I kept the rest in my handbag and when I see Pigeons in the neighbourhood I strew some on the ground for them. The days are growing shorter. There’s frost at nights and they’re hungry.
Hyde Park isn’t a wood, but there are plenty of oaks and beeches and Blackbirds and Sparrows. There’s a lake with water lilies, Ducks, Coots, Geese and Swans, and on one of the lawns a group of Greylag Geese are grazing. I walk the restlessness out of my body, then sit down on a bench and take a sandwich from my bag. As I am taking it out of its brown paper, a man comes and sits beside me. The smell of his coat makes me feel queasy. “Would you like a sandwich?” I ask him. He silently accepts it, takes a few bites, leaves the rest on the bench, still in its paper, and walks on. Three Pigeons, two of them grey and one white, land in front of me. I take the bread from the paper and crumble it up. The white one is smaller than the other two and so I give her the most. “All gone,” I say, letting them see my empty hands before wiping them on my dress. The Pigeons scratch around a little longer, then fly off, only to land at the next bench where someone is eating.
Mother writes to me each week. In December she announces that she’ll come to visit me at Christmas. The day I go to the station to fetch her it’s raining cats and dogs. I haven’t brought an umbrella with me, only a scarf wrapped around my head. People are sheltering in doorways or waiting in shops where the lights shine brightly. It’s the weekend before Christmas and everyone is shopping: handbags, hats, toy trains. The war seems far away, till a motor vehicle laden with soldiers suddenly passes, or until there’s no more chocolate somewhere, or alcohol.
On the timetable in the station hall I see that my mother’s train is expected in ten minutes. I wipe the damp, gleaming wood of the bench with my hand before sitting down. Cold creeps into my body and I sneeze, twice. My coat is heavy with rain; the air smells of coats. The sound of trains vibrates through the ground, not their cadence but the braking. I think about the piece that will premiere tomorrow—I left the rehearsal early to meet my mother and I’m not sure I should have allowed myself to do so. It’s a piece with many changes of tempo and it needs a delicate touch. But Stockdale certainly thought I should meet her. And he added that he felt a great affection for my mother.
Brighton, Manchester, Edinburgh—it would be so easy to travel elsewhere from here. Movement always bears a promise with it. On stations, in music.
A man in a long black overcoat comes and sits beside me. “Terrible weather, isn’t it?” he says. I nod. “All on your lonesome?”
“I’m waiting for my mother.”
“Oh indeed. Your mother.” He leans towards me. I shuffle along a little. He hawks into a handkerchief.
“Gwennie!” Mother is walking towards me across the smooth station floor. She kisses me on both cheeks. Behind her there’s a young man carrying a large suitcase. “This is Jim. He has kindly offered to carry my case for me. Where should I tell him to bring it?”
She talks all the way back to Mrs Sewell’s house—about Papa and Olive and Dudley, and about Kingsley too, who has finally sent her a letter, in his usual scrawl. About where she lived in London when she was a little girl. And about the neighbours and the other people in the little town in Wales and how they really are going to move now but not to London, probably back to Surrey again. Stories that are repetitions of other stories. Variations. When you’ve known someone a long time, then most stories are variations, sometimes with a modulation. I only have to nod, put in an occasional “Hmm”, and make sure we’re on the right route. Jim walks through the wet city with us, a silent, docile individual, always obediently following two steps behind Mother.
“How may I reward you?” she asks him when we’re almost there.
“With a kiss.”
Mother hesitates, or pretends to hesitate.
“Just a joke. But please do visit me, tomorrow or the day after.” He writes his address on a piece of paper that is immediately soaked by the rain. “Is it still legible?” He presses it into her hand.
Mother nods, then kisses his cheek. Once she’s in the house she throws the slip of paper into the wastepaper basket, beside the staircase. She smiles at me. “Come on then. Show me your room.”
We have Christmas lunch at the Criterion. The enormous Christmas tree is decorated with candles and gold ribbons; there are pine branches tied with red ribbon at all the windows. A waiter wearing a shining, golden bow tie takes our coats from us, while a second waiter shows us to our table.
“You were marvellous yesterday, darling,” Mother says as soon as we’re seated. She said that yesterday too, after the performance, and again as we walked home. “I’m so glad we finally have the time to talk. But I do understand that you have to practise. A performance like that is quite something.”
“Would you like to order your drinks, ma’am?”
My mother smiles at the waiter, turning her décolleté towards him. “A glass of champagne. And you, darling?”
“Darjeeling tea, please.” The gold mosaic on the ceiling is glittering.
“First Flush then. She’s performing this evening. She plays the violin. In the Queen’s Hall Orchestra.”
The waiter gives my mother a nod, and the sound of his footsteps vanishes into the carpet.
“Things are awfully difficult with Papa, you know. His new book isn’t going at all well. He’s becoming more and more critical of his work. He labours for weeks at a poem, but then he simply tears it up.”
“Perhaps you ought to find something to occupy you too, Mama. Piano. Or painting. Margaret’s things are still in the attic.” Mother has often told us that she used to be quite a good artist, but we’ve never seen any evidence of that.
“I have enough to occupy me, as you well know. Organising the soirées, managing everyone. And Cook may leave us in February, to care for her sister—and it won’t be easy to replace her. That new maid can’t be properly trusted either, so Dolores says, you know, from Towyn. So I have to keep a careful eye on her. And then there’s Dudley, who does nothing at all, but constantly criticises everything. And your sister, who can’t find a man.”
“She’ll find one without you. She’s very attractive.” I pass my hand across my forehead, smoothing away my frown.
“Well, she could try a little harder.” She takes a large draught from the glass that the waiter places in front of her. “Anyway, it’s good she’s still at home. At least she hasn’t deserted her poor old mother.”