‘They’re my tyres,’ he said calmly.
We set off in the direction we had come. I hid my face from Esther, who shook her fist as we passed. He took another turn. The road burrowed through the trees down to the river. Then a sharp right turn, and we were on a track above two sunken hay-meadows where the grass grew thick, and there, on a rise, was a cottage with a wall to one side and a great high building beyond the wall. We were at Upton Mill.
He brought the car to a halt. A fine perspiration shone on his forehead. His eyes were once again bright blue. ‘Come on in and wash your face.’ He smiled. ‘We shipped a little dust during our antics.’
The front door closed with a soft puff of air. ‘This door fits beautifully,’ I said. ‘What a silly thing to notice at a time like this.’
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘You’re a sensible girl. A sensible girl who likes fast driving. This is Elizabeth.’
And so it was, Mr and Miss Dawes’s Elizabeth, standing at the end of the hall.
‘Good heavens.’ I was embarrassed. ‘Elizabeth. How nice.’
‘Mr and Miss Dawes moved to Bournemouth.’ She smiled. ‘Too far for me.’
I scrubbed at my face with my handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry, I’m in such a state …’
‘You was in a state the last time.’ She was still smiling. ‘I’ll show you where to wash and then I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘Take her upstairs,’ Selwyn said. ‘I’ll just be in the sitting room.’
Elizabeth led me up to a spartan stone bathroom where I washed my face. My hair was coming out of its bun. I pulled out the clip and the combs and ran my fingers through it as it fell around my shoulders. I glared at my reflection, and my reflection glared back.
When I came out Elizabeth was on the landing. She was carrying a large brown paper parcel. ‘I was just going to put these in the airing cupboard.’ She set the parcel down on a chest on the landing and untied the string. ‘We send them to Peck’s Laundry. They’re the best.’ Inside the parcel was a bale of four white sheets, the crispest linen. She pulled them out. I followed her to the airing cupboard and we passed a room with a half-open door, and inside it a mirror, and in the mirror a bed with a golden-brown polished headboard and a bare mattress. ‘I’ll do his bed this afternoon,’ Elizabeth said. She opened the airing cupboard and lavender washed out on the warm air, fresh and clean, and I was transported, a young child again in all my riches, sliding my hot summer legs into the scented cool of laundered sheets.
Elizabeth put the new sheets onto the shelf. She tucked lavender bags, flat gauze pleated bags tied with a purple ribbon, between the fat folds. ‘I make them fresh every year. Smells nice, doesn’t it.’
There were pillowcases too, ironed into squares. I wanted to bury my face in them. ‘It’s gorgeous.’ I took the sheets from the shelf. ‘I’ll do the bed.’
‘Oh, Miss Calvert. It’s hardly proper.’
The lavender bags fell onto the floor. I picked them up. ‘You can tell him, Elizabeth.’
The sheet floated out before settling four-square onto the bed. Even before our fall began I used to help Jennie, and Mother used to watch. Hospital corners, miss, said Jennie. I pulled out a sharp triangular fold and drove it deep under the mattress. The sheet was tight, a level plain of right-angled fields. Selwyn was in the doorway. I saw him as I straightened up, moving towards me, towards the bed. He was taking his glasses off. His eyes were wide, bright, haunted.
‘Ellen, my dear, I simply can’t—’
‘I’ve nearly finished,’ I said. ‘Don’t sit down on the bed. Don’t sit down. Selwyn, you’ve ruined it.’
I wept, my hands on my wet cheeks. He held out his arms.
There were so many things on a man, so many things to dig into one. Belt, braces, watch, cufflinks. Spectacles. And their heavy, iron-tipped shoes. Each and every one dug into me. He was warm, lean, lithe. He smelled of cotton, heated cotton. My heart pounded but I felt utterly safe. He pushed the hair from my face and smoothed it over my shoulder. ‘It’s astonishing. Like a sheaf of wheat …’
His face, close up, was thinner, younger.
‘What did you want to say, Selwyn? What can you not do?’
He swallowed, looked away at the window. ‘Ellen, do you know the story of Sarah and Tobias?’
I shook my head.
‘Tobias …’ he closed his eyes ‘… and Sarah … Well, the crux of the matter is that on their wedding night they remain chaste.’
‘Chaste.’
‘Chaste.’ His eyelids trembled. His shoulder pinned my arm. Soon I’d have to move. ‘They pray …’ he cleared his throat ‘… and then they go to sleep for the night.’
There was silence. The headboard creaked as I began to tug my arm from beneath him. ‘I’m afraid I missed a lot of Sunday School—’
But then he spoke quickly, eyes still shut. ‘I can’t perform the physical act, Ellen, I’m sure you know the one I mean, and I’ve done a stupid, harmful thing in befriending you, because you’re young, you need a family, and the joys of a full married life, and I’m not the man for that.’
He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. His back was facing me. I pushed myself upright.
‘Is it …’ I squeezed my hands together. These, for me, were utterly uncharted waters. ‘I mean, isn’t there some sort of treatment?’
‘No. At the end of the war I was hospitalized. They called it neurasthenia. I started passing out at the wheel, you see. Seconds at a time, with no warning at all. My brain was no longer giving me permission to drive. Or eat, or drink, or speak. And then there was this final thing, the one we’re talking about, that I discovered I couldn’t do at all. I’m afraid that ability never came back.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I am,’ said Selwyn. ‘Believe me, I have tried.’
I fought vainly against a bursting volley of giggles. He put his head in his hands.
‘Oh, Ellen,’ he said. ‘Ellen, Ellen.’
‘I do understand, you know. You’re describing a mariage blanc. I learned the phrase from Lady Brock.’
‘It’s no marriage for you.’
‘Kiss me, Selwyn. You can do that, can’t you?’
‘No, Ellen. It would be wrong.’
I kissed him on the cheek. Then he put his lips against the corner of my mouth. My entire left side was electrified.
‘Now you’ve made it worse,’ he said.
We drove to Waltham. Selwyn put his hat and gloves on before he got in the car. Accoutred as he now was, it was impossible to believe that we had ever lain on the white bed. He drove in silence, craning forward to penetrate the shadows in the lane.
‘So,’ I said as we crossed Waltham Square. ‘Thank you for a nice afternoon.’
He laughed in spite of himself, a lovely light sound. He slowed the car to a halt. The hostel door drew level with my window.
‘I’ve got no desire to have children, Selwyn.’
He gave a tired smile. ‘You say that now.’
‘I do say it.’
‘In a year you’ll change your mind—’
‘How do you know!’ It burst out of me. ‘Why do people even think they can know about me!’
I grabbed at the door handle and got out of the car. He peered up at me, his hat low on his brow. Selwyn Parr of Parr’s Mill. Fine Flours and Animal Feeds. ‘It’s a pity you’re determined to finish this,’ I said. ‘Because you’re ruining your life, and mine too, by turning down the one woman who’d suit you.’
Ten days, and then a note in my pigeonhole. Copperplate, spare and neat. I read it with what little light penetrated the heavy clouds of early summer, in the lobby of the hostel, propping the door open with my foot. I didn’t want to take his letter into my room, where I’d keep chancing on it among my things. The hurt would take my breath away.
Please try to understand that the last thing I wanted to do was cause you unhappiness. Someone like you, a young woman of great beauty –
Hyperbole.
– will prompt the rashest acts in men. It is one of life’s unfairnesses.
Balderdash.
Ever yours, Selwyn.