Chapter 20: Zoë - The Golden Hours

The night before he left, Rupert went to dinner with Hugh and Jemima. Zoë cried off. ‘Headache,’ she said. In truth, she just didn’t feel up to putting on any more of a wifely performance. It was bad enough maintaining it for Rupert and the household, but she just couldn’t keep it up for the in-laws. She was absolutely bloody livid with him. Again. How bloody dare you. Then, understanding again: he’s an artist, a wanderer, he has to go; if I love him, I have to set him free. God, that quote annoyed her. Just an excuse for men to get their own way. Of course he was free! He’d always been free. It wasn’t that she didn’t think he’d come back. Or that she wanted to be put first above his art. It might actually be quite relaxing to have the extra space in her days. But the principle! Meanwhile over the previous weeks she had renewed his passport, booked the ferry ticket (open-ended), found the map, realised it was out of date and gone to Covent Garden to buy a new one, made sure all his clothes were clean, packed for him and helped to load the family car with canvasses, paints, rags, easels, sketchbooks and turpentine.

Clary and Archie were out too, at some opening – she couldn’t keep up. Clary had muttered something about research and be a darling, would you? And it was Nanny’s evening off; she’d gone to see her sister in Camden Town. In some ways, how lovely. A truly quiet evening. I’ll have a long bath later, she thought, and began to fold clothes and think about supper, and the tides seeping into the old kitchen.

The hot water reappeared around seven, the boiler performing its routine of clanking and hissing. She had made toasted cheese for everyone, and deputed Harriet to put Buttercup to bed so she could retreat into her haven of steam, fragrance, a gin and It and a Frances Crane. She would read, and marinate, and when the water cooled she would put more hot water in, and when that started to cool she would get into bed on her own with no snoring, no conversation, no sex, just lovely reading and lovely sleep.

She was in the bathroom, naked, testing the heat of the water with her toe, when the door behind her flung open and in walked Massimo.

‘What the –’ she yelped.

‘Oh, I so sorry,’ he said, looking her up and down, smiling leisurely, not sorry at all. ‘Other bathroom is busy. Children, you know.’

‘What the –’ she said again. Her arms were stupidly folded. Automatically she glanced for something to cover herself with – a garment, a towel. There was no garment. The towel was on the floor. She absolutely wasn’t going to bend down for it. She wasn’t going to adopt any coy Birth of Venus pose. Whatever she did would be ridiculous, farcical. A cheap thrill for him.

‘Fuck off, Massimo,’ she said.

Taking his time, with a pout, a shrug, and an insufferable glance back, he went.

She stared after him.

It was their bathroom. He had no business entering their bathroom. In the evening, when everybody was out.

She perched on the cork-topped laundry hamper.

How dare he.

Of course, she should have locked the door. She’d been about to! But it was their bathroom. He should have knocked! What was he thinking! Actually, what was he thinking? Was he thinking – She’d never given him any reason to think! Of course she hadn’t. Or was it a cultural thing? Had he just misread ‘Swinging London’, or the family’s relaxed ways?

No, Italians knew perfectly well not to walk in on women in their bath. Would he do that in his family house? No, he wouldn’t.

And Rupert out.

Thank God he hadn’t left already! Imagine if he’d been halfway to Paris –

And with a teenage girl in the house. Imagine if –

The look on his horrible face!

Oh God, where is he now? Walking in on Harriet? No, Harriet is bathing Buttercup.

Her clothes were in the bedroom. He wouldn’t still be out there – would he? She picked up a towel, and wrapped it round her, tucking it in tight, as if that ever worked. Her shoulders seemed so thin. She stared at the bathroom door, its white panels, the other towel hanging from the brass hook like a ghost. She grabbed the handle and pulled it open in one big blurt of movement.

He wasn’t there. The bedroom door was open. Her bra and knickers lay where she had abandoned them on the bed. She walked over, breathing hard, and closed the door. There was no lock on that either, she now noticed, after, what, ten years in the house? There’d never been any need.

She pulled on a pair of slacks, a jumper. Swallowed; listened. Opened the bedroom door.

‘Georgie!’ she yelled. ‘Bertie!’ Comforting rumbles of reluctance came from the boys’ room. She crossed the landing, knocked, put her head round the door.

‘Darlings,’ she said. ‘Could I ask you a favour? Would you leave your door open?’

‘We’re not smoking or anything,’ said Bertie.

‘Just because,’ she said, loving them passionately and invisibly. She crossed back and went upstairs. The children’s bathroom door was open, and Harriet was crooning ‘Love Me Do’ to Buttercup, who, standing up and clapping, an utter cherub of pink curves and yellow curls, was yelling back, ‘I-I-I-I-I love you!’

‘All right, you two,’ said Zoë.

‘Why aren’t you in your bath?’ Harriet asked. ‘What happened to your lovely evening alone?’, and Zoë was touched that Harriet had noticed that that was what she was doing.

‘Oh,’ she said vaguely. ‘The water.’ She turned to the basin, and washed her face and forearms, but you can’t wash eyes off you. She hadn’t felt so dirty for – well, she could date it exactly.

I must ring Rupert, she thought.

She didn’t want to.

She blew kisses to the girls and turned and ran down the stairs.

‘Oh, hello, Jemima – Hello, yes, I’m so sorry – Yes, could you put Rupert on? . . . Yes, no, it’s nothing –’ How we lie, she thought. For convenience, often enough. One doesn’t want to have to explain.

‘Darling? Yes, hello, darling, I’m so sorry to disturb your lovely evening – yes, it’s –’

She told him.

He laughed.

‘But darling,’ she said, and so did he.

‘Well, where was he meant to go, if the other bathroom was occupied?’ he said. ‘Come on, old thing!’

The back of her neck went cold.

‘There’s nobody in the house, Rupert,’ she said.

‘Where’s Nanny?’ he said.

‘Evening off,’ she said. ‘It’s just me and the children.’

‘Well, he can’t do it again, can he? You’re not in the bath. So, you see, there’s no harm done. Nothing can happen.’

This was true.

‘So don’t be a goose. If you like, I’ll remind him tomorrow before I leave that he’s not to use that bathroom . . .’

‘Our bathroom,’ she said faintly.

‘Our bathroom,’ Rupert agreed, as if that made everything all right. ‘I’ll be back before eleven. Now, don’t worry.’

‘He can’t stay, Rupert,’ she said.

‘We’ll talk about it later,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to him.’

I can put a chair under my door handle, but I can’t under Harriet’s, she thought. And I can’t tell Harriet to. I can’t talk to her about those things anyway and certainly not under these circumstances. Zoë didn’t even know what, if anything, Harriet knew about sex. Clary was always so – she stopped herself. Motherless Clary. Who had told her about those things?

No, she couldn’t say anything alarming to Harriet. She would wait up until Rupert got home. He would understand, when he saw her. He would talk to Massimo tonight.

Was he meant to be staying for next term? She went to the desk in the studio – which had been her lovely drawing room – and shook her head at the chaos, the papers, the stuffed drawers. There were meant to be brown card folders for each student (at one stage Clary had cut out beautiful images of paintings from the Sotheby’s catalogues and pasted them on each file: charming, but not helpful). There was also the account book, but that was organised by date, and God knows when anyone might have paid. The student files were in a push-me-pull-you metal filing cabinet on wheels, in theory alphabetically. What was Massimo’s surname?

She sat on the office chair, piled with cushions to bring the ancient collapsed seat somewhere up to modern seat-level, and began to go through. Ah, Durante. Here we are. One-year course. So he’d be here . . .

And Rupert going away.

She spent two hours drinking tea in the kitchen, telling herself she should be able to deal with this, how weak and foolish she was, that she was overreacting, that she wasn’t overreacting. That she needed to show some backbone. Or was she overreacting? He’d just needed the loo! There was nothing sinister about it –

Then remembering his smirk, the way he’d looked her up and down. Imagining him smirking like that at Harriet. She started crying. Wiped her face on a painty rag.

When Harriet came down and asked if she was all right, she blandly said, ‘Of course!’ She took in her granddaughter’s smooth skin, sweet puzzled expression, trustfulness. Harriet’s big grey eyes were more like Clary’s every day. Zoë put her hand out and touched her hair for a moment. Harriet put the kettle on, still humming that song. Zoë felt for a moment enchanted by how children believe grown-ups, no matter what bare-faced nonsense they’re offering them.

She was still sitting on the sofa when Clary and Archie came in. Harriet had gone to bed.

‘Why is your face smeared with paint?’ Clary cried. ‘You’re shivering! What is it?’

It took Zoë a while to explain what had happened.

So Archie went all the way up to the lodgers’ room. Zoë said, ‘Oh, his poor leg.’ And Clary, her arms around her stepmother’s chilly shoulders, said, ‘What an utter – I’m sorry, Zoë, but what an utter bastard.’

‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ Zoë said, and Clary said, ‘You did absolutely the right thing. How could he stay? Nobody would feel safe.’

‘It wasn’t a mistake,’ Zoë said, as if reassuring herself.

And after a while Archie came creaking down again, and said, ‘All right, he’s going.’

‘But where to?’ said Zoë. ‘And what about his fees?’

Archie sat down next to her, patted her knee, and said, ‘I could do with a small whisky, couldn’t you?’ so Zoë said yes, and Clary got the bottle. ‘What did Jem say?’ Clary asked, and Zoë wondered if she were picturing the scene, in case she ever needed to write it.

‘Eyes wide, said nothing,’ said Archie, with a clear least-said-soonest-mended look in his eye.

Zoë’s hands were still shaking when she picked up her glass.

‘It’s dealt with now,’ said Clary, noticing. ‘And Archie is here.’

Archie screwed up his eyes a little, shifting in his seat. He didn’t say anything. Zoë took a sip. She seldom thought about the fact that her stepson-in-law was older than she was, but she felt his warm presence like an older brother now. The phenomenal blessing of having a safe, kind man at your side.

After about twenty minutes, they all heard the front door slam, and Zoë’s shoulders fell at last.

Rupert didn’t get it at all. But why had Zoë been so scared? Why had Archie thrown their student out into the night? Why on earth hadn’t they waited for him to get back? He’d said he’d talk to the boy, and he would have, in the morning. Really, talk about a storm in a teacup.

‘It’s not about the bathroom, Rupert,’ Archie said. ‘It’s about the women feeling all right in their own home.’ And suddenly Zoë’s eyes opened wide, mortified – that Archie was having to explain this to her husband – that Rupert didn’t understand – that she couldn’t explain. ‘I wouldn’t want a chap who is that . . . careless, if that is what it was, living under the same roof as my wife and daughter. Certainly not if I wasn’t even going to be here.’

This hung there for a second.

‘And I’m sure you don’t either,’ Archie said, rather quickly.

Rupert coughed.

‘Bloody good riddance,’ said Clary.

Zoë turned to Rupert and started crying on his coat. He put his arm around her. ‘Sorry, old girl,’ he murmured.

Rupert left in the morning as planned. She cooked his breakfast; helped him finish packing the car; found the map he’d lost again. He didn’t really seem to have taken any of it on board, and she hadn’t tried to talk him out of it. She had hardly talked to him at all. But she was still going to be a good wife.

‘Bye!’ she called brightly and unconvincingly, at the kerb. ‘Have fun!’ She stood in the road waving till he was out of sight, and turned back to the house. Her smile collapsed like tiles from a roof. Clary followed her in. Mrs Thing was doing the kitchen, a chaos after the early breakfast, the kids, the students, the departure. Clary put the kettle on.

‘At least Jem and the other students will be off soon,’ Clary said. Jem hadn’t come down to breakfast, which was not like him. She didn’t even know what Archie had said to them.

‘And thank Christ for that,’ said Zoë.

The plan was that as soon as everybody had broken up and gone home, Archie would drive Zoë, Georgie and much of the zoo to Fakenham for a lovely holiday. The goats, Zoë hoped, would stay there. It wasn’t clear yet whether or not Clary would be coming.