One Summer

by Rachel Billington

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

An intense, moving novel about obsessive love. K, a middle-aged painter, has returned from a hermit-like existence in Chile to attend the wedding of a girl he once loved to the point of obsession. He arrives at the English country church to find it empty and silent. The wedding has been postponed. He drives back to his hotel - a place he'd visited many years before - opens a bottle of champagne and with it, a door to the past. When K first saw Claudia fifteen years before, he fell instantly and dangerously in love. He managed to forget he had a wife and a life already full. It was a coup de foudre; he became consumed by her. But Claudia was little more than a child then, twenty-four years his junior, beautiful but unformed. Perhaps it was no surprise that their love proved to be so destructive and ultimately tragic. Now, years later, he returns to find this new bride, his old love, is on the verge of a very different future. But the past, inevitably, awaits them both - and he is determined to take her back there¿

Release date: June 3, 2010

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 324

Sample

The church was small, very English, very charming. I had arrived far too early, driving unerringly through narrow, twisting roads and villages following one after the other with exhausting rapidity: Witley, Wormley, Hambledon. It had been raining when I left London. By the time I reached the tumbled graveyard, protected by two ragged yews, the rain had reduced itself to a fine mist that clung to the air and veiled the distant countryside in which, surprisingly, not one of the many villages I had passed through was visible.

I suppose it was picturesque but my mood was too discordant to admit anything but criticism. It was July. It was raining, so this must be England. I was a fool to be here, a fool to be clothed in morning dress – the coat had belonged to my father and smelt of mothballs – a fool to have drunk half a bottle of Scotch the night before, a fool to be so early.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

It was dim at the back of the church where I sat and I hadn’t been aware of anyone approaching.

‘I’m early.’

The man who stood politely in front of me had a smooth, youngish face but his hair was completely white, like that of someone who has survived a shock. ‘Early for what, if I may intrude?’

I straightened up. My thoughts had been so inward that, apart from the rain and the yew trees, I had hardly taken in my surroundings. ‘The wedding.’

‘I was afraid that might be the case. You didn’t notice the lack of flowers?’

I looked round and saw that, apart from a couple of small bunches on a faraway altar, there was a complete lack of floral decoration.

‘The wedding’s off, sir. I thought there might be the odd guest who slipped through the net.’

‘What net?’ I was trying hard not to imagine that this cancellation could mean anything. My heart, weakened by the whisky, jumped strangely.

‘They assured me everyone had been informed.’ His diction was formal, like a thirties butler.

‘I’ve been abroad. Until last night.’ I put a bit more vigour into my voice.

‘So, what’s the story?’

‘The bride’s father is indisposed. Just a postponement.’

‘I suppose you’re the churchwarden,’ I was chatting to calm myself.

‘One of them. The responsible one.’ He winked at me. His eyes were pale blue and, with one closed, he had a leering air.

‘And has another date been set?’ These words were harder to get out.

‘Not so far as I know. But, then, I’m not the priest-in-charge, am I?’

‘Thank you.’ I stood up and walked briskly to the door, meaning to find my car and drive back to my musty flat in London, where I’d lain awake all night torturing myself. But the rain made me hesitate. It was coming down in thick silver sheets. Already a small stream was running swiftly along the sloping path. Above my head a drainpipe gurgled in what sounded like celebration. I pulled out my mobile.

‘You’ll not find that much use here, sir.’

The churchwarden sounded pleased. I could hardly blame him: it was not often such an obvious loser came to cheer up the day.

‘Is there a telephone?’

‘Oh, no.’ He paused. ‘Of course I have one.’

‘I suppose you do.’ I felt my small surge of energy dissipating. Who had I planned to call? Who would want my call? It was nearly fourteen years since I’d been in England. I had hardly ever called her number anyway.

‘You can use mine, if you like.’ The churchwarden indicated his home, a stone-built cottage just outside the graveyard.

I hesitated once more, then stepped out into the rain. You’re very kind.’

We were both soaked in the short journey to the churchwarden’s doorstep. His hair, I noticed, had not darkened – as if it had a water-repellent property.

‘Mother.’ He moved inside motioning me to stay where I was. I huddled obediently under a narrow porch. ‘I’ve a wedding guest to use the telephone.’ He was shouting so I could hear perfectly, although not the response. I tried to remember the exact line from the New Testament about the wedding guest but instead recalled the wedding guest who is stopped by the scrawny hand of the Ancient Mariner, determined to recount his tale of woe.

‘Come in. The telephone’s in the hallway but I like to inform my mother if there’s a stranger in the home.’ Through the open door I could see a very old lady wearing a plaid dressing-gown. Her eyes were closed, as if she slept. She might as well have been dead.

‘Is she asleep?’

‘As blind as she’s deaf so she feels there’s no point in opening her eyes.’

My acute depression opened a crack into a wider world of loss. I wanted to ask why such a person continued to live.

I took up the receiver and dialled what might have been her number. My companion receded tactfully to a room at the end of the hall.

‘The number you have dialled requires an additional zero after the first digit. The number you have dialled …’ So I had got it very nearly right. Or perhaps it had changed over the years. I replaced the receiver, noticing as I did so that I’d made a small puddle on the carpet, like an untrained puppy.

‘Did you get through?’

‘I missed a digit. Of course I’ll pay you for the call.’ I dialled again.

‘Yes?’ A woman had answered the phone. Not her. What did I think I was up to?

‘Yes? Hello! Who is it?’ In a moment she would ring off. I could recognise Catherine now. She must be over sixty. Why was age so important? But, then, it always had been. In some people’s view the most important thing.

‘I’m sorry.’ It was too much. I put down the receiver for the second time.

My hands were shaking and my palms were wet, but not from the rain. How had I ever thought I could come to the wedding as a guest? Perhaps they had moved the ceremony to another church because, despite all my efforts, someone had discovered my approach. Thank God. Thank God I had been saved by her father’s illness. Until now I had not quite believed it was real, I realised, just a way of stopping the wedding.

‘No luck.’ I started to leave the hallway.

‘Would you like a cup of tea? My mother likes a cup of tea and a biscuit.’

Had I really been planning to visit that house? In the rain? So late in the day? It felt much later than tea-time. I was agitated. My limbs felt as if they were strung on wire like a puppet’s, ready to dance. Like a skeleton’s. ‘Is there a hotel nearby?’

The churchwarden seemed shocked, as if I’d suggested visiting a brothel.

‘Don’t worry. I think I passed one on the way. You’ve been very kind.’ I was in a hurry to be on my own, away from his stares and suppositions, away from his aged mother. I forced myself to go to the door calmly, to turn, wave and say, ‘thank you again,’ as he stood silently, watching me with judging eyes. Since that summer’s day, any sort of judgement has pushed me into panic.

But I had learnt to control the feeling and walked quietly enough to my car. Once inside, I watched the rain sliding down the windscreen and thought, So she hasn’t married today. I allowed this knowledge to seep through me until I understood it was true. At least, it was true for today. I would find a hotel and order champagne.

I drove slowly, getting my bearings after my long absence. My own house had been about ten miles away from the church, over a ridge of hills crowned with pale geometric shapes, houses inadequately disguised by trees. Hers had been only three miles away. The choice of the church for the wedding had already told me her family still lived there, even before I’d heard Catherine’s voice.

Without making any conscious decisions, I found myself turning off along a road through thick pinewoods. The afternoon, which was already dark with rain, became darker, the sky almost invisible. After ten minutes, the trees began to thin and a steely glint appeared ahead and to the right. I knew exactly where I was now. I started as a car shot by impatiently. I was hardly moving. On my right was a large expanse of smooth water surrounded to its brink by trees. To my left – I was lingering – just short of it stood a two-storey brick building with a wide forecourt and a sign advertising ‘Fresh Ponds Hotel’.

Was this what my wily unconsciousness had been planning all along, even when I was asking the churchwarden if he knew a nearby hotel? Another car flashed by, letting me know with a beep on his horn. I pulled myself together enough to drive on another hundred yards and drew up in the hotel car park. I felt ashamed to be where I was, as guilty as a murderer who revisits the scene of his crime. I couldn’t really be planning to stay here, could I?

I got out of my car and walked towards the hotel. It had started raining again but I hardly noticed.

‘Yes, sir?’

The reception area meant nothing to me. Perhaps it had been renovated; more probably, I had been too wound up on that other occasion to notice. A man was coming towards me. Tall, thin, almost gaunt, the dark sunburn of his creased face made more startling by thick grey hair, cut short but raggedly. I paused for a second in front of the mirror. I knew I’d lost weight recently but I hadn’t been aware quite how much my appearance had changed. Trying to overcome the shock with irony, I thought that at least I hadn’t grown a beard, like other runaways.

‘May I help you, sir?’

‘I’d like a room. On the top floor. At the front.’ Oh, what memories! The receptionist, a young woman with bluish stripes in dark hair, stared at me curiously.

‘I’ve been to a wedding. I need a rest.’

‘You’ll have to book for a full night.’

‘Fine.’ I gave her my credit card, she gave me a key, but then I found myself unable to go upstairs. ‘Where can I get a drink?’

‘The bar’s to the right.’

It was surprisingly full of people after the spacious emptiness of Reception. I remembered my resolve to order champagne.

‘I’d like a bottle of champagne. The best you’ve got.’ My words caused a faint stir around me but the barman was quickly efficient, indicating a table in the corner and asking me whether Piper Heidsieck would be OK. ‘It’s all we’ve got chilled.’

‘Fine.’

When the bottle arrived, steaming icily from the top, I remembered that I had ordered champagne on that other occasion, even though I knew she hardly drank alcohol. Perhaps I’d needed to be a little drunk.

‘You’ll never get through all that on your own.’ I’d already swigged nearly half the bottle when a man with a waistcoat as red as his face came up to me.

‘You’re in need, are you?’ I think my tone was friendly.

‘That’s a good one. I’ll remember that. In need.’ He laughed heartily. ‘Yes, I should say so. I haven’t seen you here on a Saturday before.’

‘Tell you what.’ I stood up. ‘You drink my health in what’s left.’ I started towards the door.

‘Hey, I didn’t mean …’

I was outside. It was still raining but the alcohol had made me warm and confident. I took off my ridiculous tailcoat and put it on the back seat, before getting into the car. It was half past three. I could be at her house in ten minutes.

Time has a funny way of behaving when things are out of order. The months following that summer’s day, before I fled England, seemed like a few days to me. Yet once I had reached Chile, time stretched terrifyingly, each day like a month, an endless ocean of time in which I couldn’t decide whether to sink or swim. Of course I never wrote another word.

The moment I re-entered England I was back in the time zone of the tragedy. The evening and the night spent in London after my arrival from Heathrow had passed in a blank of misery. The sterile air of the flat, unused for so many years, pressed heavily around me as I sat or lay unmoving. My hand, lifting my whisky glass or pouring from the bottle, was the only measure of time passing. When I went to the lavatory and flushed it, the noise sounded as loud as a cataract. I glanced at my watch again. In ten minutes I could be at her house. I tried to work out what time it would be in Valparaiso. I live high up in one of the poorest cerros. My view over the harbour is splendid but most of my neighbours are insalubrious, if not actually dangerous. In the first few years I was mugged regularly. Now they leave me alone. It was what I had wanted. What I deserved. My greatest hope in those early years was that there’d be a repeat of the 1906 earthquake, and the whole ramshackle place, including me, particularly me, would be wiped out. But the tenacity of the human spirit had caught me out. Or maybe it was something else.

If I sat in the car inactive much longer the effect of the champagne would wear off. I turned on the engine and began to drive. It is remarkable how mechanical capabilities remain even when a man has become a zombie. Our hearts may be dead or numbed, but the hand still moves to the ignition, the feet work the pedals as efficiently as ever, the eye watches for traffic ahead.

The turning to the house had always come as a surprise. It had been marked by a sign, ‘Concealed Entrance’, but it was so surrounded by shrubs and bushy trees that it gave the impression of being a very half-hearted invitation to visitors. I had driven into the driveway almost every weekday for a long spring and summer but now I missed it altogether. I only noticed this after I’d passed landmarks beyond the house, other entrances, one with new white stone dogs on columns, a garage, more houses visible from the road. Hers had been tucked into the countryside within its own three-acre domain.

I turned the car round and drove back slowly, The ‘concealed entrance’ was in the past. The shrubs had been cleared and a gravel roadway led into a small estate of four houses, each with its own garage and small garden. I couldn’t understand what had happened to her house until I saw a narrow tarmacked drive leading to the right of the estate and guessed it must still be there, hidden behind the new buildings.

It was time to decide whether I was serious about my destination. If I was, I could leave the car more or less where it was. In one way, it would be easier to walk: I would be less conspicuous, able to dive behind any shrubs remaining. Also, it had finally stopped raining and a lemon yellow sun filtered through a streaky sky. This had nothing to do with the aggressive Chilean sun. It was delicate, suggestive of light and colour rather than heat and glare. The sun tempted me out. On the other hand, once I left the car’s carapace, I would be vulnerable. If it were necessary to flee, my feet and legs would have to take me away, rather than a 1.8-litre engine.

I was still undecided and might even have driven off when a car came fast out of the driveway. I easily recognised who was at the wheel. Catherine had always driven fast. Besides, her thick grey-blonde hair and regular profile made her distinctive. The moment she had gone, turning left towards the centre of the village, I put my foot on the accelerator and took the route she’d just left. I was too agitated to notice anything about my surroundings, except that there were still trees and greenery.

I stopped short of the house and dared to look up. The main building was a perfect Georgian square with slate roof and large windows. To my left were several outbuildings, stables and a coach-house. My workroom had been in the coach-house. It was through the window of this dim little room that I had watched her.

I had assumed Catherine had left the house empty and I got out of the car bravely enough. But my legs knew better and were trembling after a few steps. The past years had taught me how much more powerful the mind is than the body. I stood in front of that house as weak as a sick child.

At least the sun continued to shine, although the house and the trees on either side – there was a large cedar to the south-east – cast a shadow nearly to where I stood. The question was whether to proceed further (but then what?) or to return, mission accomplished to some extent. I had seen the house where she had lived and possibly still did. I took two dithering steps forward and stopped again. An owl, which should have been asleep catcalled from high up in the cedar.

Could revisiting the past ever give answers for the present?

I was woken by the sound of a car. I knew Catherine was going back to the hospital and at times of stress she drove faster than ever. She had sent me upstairs to sleep but then she had woken me. I tried not to be irritated, suspecting it was a symptom that, after all these years, I was still not quite better. She has been a wonderful mother to me.

Hardly had she whirled off when I heard another car, this time approaching, and far more tentative. Ever since we’d had to sell the land at the front of the garden, car noises had been audible, but this was definitely near the house although I felt as if it had not come all the way up to it. Then I heard the owl that lives in the cedar. My mother said I had hearing like a bat’s and it was true that, since my illness, I can pick up the smallest noise. I think it came about because during that terrible time I listened so hard, although I never knew quite what I was listening for. I mentioned it to my shrink once and she suggested I was ‘on guard’ and I guess that was about it.

But I wasn’t on guard that afternoon. Not for myself, anyway. My father was dying, my wedding had been cancelled: not a happy time certainly but both events, one leading from the other, out of my control. Moreover, I had acquitted myself well, staying beside my father all night at the hospital so that Catherine could sleep. Now it was my turn. My father had been ill for so very long that I could hardly grieve passionately.

Drifting again, I distinctly heard the car drive nearer, take the loop in the front of the house, then drive slowly away. Someone had taken a wrong turning perhaps. Even a few years ago that kind of unresolved situation would have made me nervous, particularly as I was in the house on my own. I turned to lie on my back without my heart changing a beat. But I was fully awake.

It had been raining when I got into bed but now the light was bright through my unlined curtains. The sun must have come out. My curtains hadn’t been changed since my childhood and coloured animals sported across a jungle-green background. The sun, acting as a projector, imprinted lions and tigers, parakeets and zebras across the white expanse of my wedding dress, which hung on the outside of the cupboard since it was too big to fit inside. The effect was weird and made me feel uncomfortable enough to get out of bed and pull back the curtains.

I had forgotten about the marquee, and its mammoth whiteness, where I had expected green grass, further disconcerted me. Perhaps my earlier boasts of inner calm had been premature. Breathing carefully in the way I had been taught, I decided to go downstairs to the kitchen, make myself a cup of tea, then ring Oliver. The very name made me feel more composed.

He would be busy, of course. When we had taken the decision two days ago to postpone the ceremony, he immediately cancelled his leave – our two-week honeymoon was booked for Sicily – and went back to work. You can do that if you’re a doctor in an overstretched London hospital. My mother seemed surprised that he wasn’t with us here, supporting me as I watched over the death of my father. But she had never understood that part of his attraction was that he didn’t hang over me unnecessarily. Certainly, he was the rock to which I had clung thankfully for the last few years. But I didn’t demand his physical presence. He was occupied with looking after other people. It was enough to know I came first. In fact, his lack of worry about my living independently in London encouraged my first step to sanity. Not that I was ever properly mad – merely horrified out of my wits. Possibly it came to the same thing.

‘Oliver. It’s me.’ Predictably, I’d reached his answering-machine. ‘Ring me when you have a break. The sun’s come out so I’m going for a swim. I’ll take my mobile. No change at the hospital. My mother’s there now. I’ll go later. I love you.’ And maybe I did.

The water was still warm, despite the rain. The cover had split a few years ago and we’d decided not to replace it. The pool, cracking edges and peeling paint, was a relic from a more prosperous past. In honour of the wedding celebration, four pots newly planted with white geraniums stood at each corner.

I swam up and down slowly and wondered how many million times I’d crossed the same length of water. Today should have been the day I left it for ever and yet here I was, even wearing my old school bathing-suit with its array of round badges sewn across my bosom. Over the years I’d been taught how to look back without panic but I didn’t feel strong enough now. Best to enjoy my rhythmic movement and watch the sun, sinking fast now. Soon it would disappear entirely behind the tall row of chestnut trees separating our garden from our neighbour’s.

Shivering a little, I climbed out, stripped off my costume, and wrapped myself in a navy blue towel. My father had been so proud of the pool. He gave a party to inaugurate it. I was eight, my sister eighteen, his ‘two beauties’, as he used to call us. Then we were both fair, blue-eyed, slimly built. It’s a very traditionally English look that I thought dull but filled him with pride and joy. He couldn’t believe that someone as stocky and dark as he was could have produced such ‘princesses’ – his other name for us. So, now I was daring to look back. My father was the sort of man, perhaps not many left now – I don’t know – who didn’t give credit to his wife’s genetic contribution. She was blonde, grey now if she leaves the hairdresser too long. I guess she’s always felt young because she’s ten years younger than her husband. I wonder how she’ll feel after his death. It makes me sad for her.

Age differences have played an important part in my life. Maybe there are boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.

I towelled myself vigorously and put on my clothes. The mobile rang. ‘Darling!’

‘At this moment we should be celebrating our marriage in the smart marquee.’

‘Are you trying to make things worse?’ I laughed. He invariably cheered me. He had a gift for saying the worst and making it amusing. ‘I can see the top of the marquee from here. It looks offended. They’re taking it down on Monday.’

‘All my colleagues think you’ve given me the slip.’

‘Oh, Oliver.’

‘I tried pretending I’d dumped you but anyone who’d seen you for a second knew that couldn’t be true. What are you doing?’

‘I’ve just had a swim.’

‘So late?’

‘I was sleeping. Then a car woke me. My mother’s and then a mystery one. It came and went without trying to make contact.’

‘A wedding guest?’

‘I didn’t think of that.’ I paused. ‘I wonder who.’ But I didn’t want to wonder. I changed the subject. ‘My father’s had nothing to eat or drink for four days now.’

‘He’s a strong man. I’m afraid it could be days more. Darling, I’m so sorry, I’ve got to go. I’m being bleeped.’

‘I’ll be at the hospital tonight.’

‘So will I. But not with you. Our honeymoon night.’ Even he sounded a little bitter, although he tried to make it seem like irony. ‘I kiss your left shoulder-blade.’

‘Received with gratitude.’

‘Over and out.’

Restlessly, I walked round the garden. The marquee was laced up against the rain. It still had damp streaks running down from the two peaks, on which two flags hung looking foolish. Oliver and I had agreed not to try to set another date for the wedding till after my father’s funeral but that gave the whole business a sense of unreality. After what had happened that summer, it had become ingrained in me that I could never be married. But in the last year Oliver had convinced me that it was possible, that I didn’t have to do penance for ever. Now this mournfully slow dying of my father seemed to be proving him wrong. Perhaps Oliver and I would never be married.

The thought surfaced glibly, with less pain attached to it than I would have expected. It was like falling back into a position that I had never entirely left. The marquee company was fully booked till the end of September. My mother had talked to them, but they insisted we pay the full whack because this was their busiest time of year. She had shouted at them, ‘My husband’s dying!’ But they had remained unmoved. So she had informed me that my ‘next’ wedding, a strange choice of words, would have to be an altogether simpler affair. I agreed meekly. She loved my father, I liked to presume, even if she’d found it hard to cope with his illness and the money running out. At least she’d stayed with him.

There was another point of ill omen about this wedding that never was. My elder sister, Louise, had lived abroad almost since her marriage to Tom, a banker. First they’d been in New York and for the last few years in Hong Kong. ‘Going against the trend’, as Tom said. They had three children and the youngest – ten years younger than the others – had epilepsy. Reggie’s fits were generally controlled by pills but he’d had one on the day they were supposed to fly to England. Too much excitement, Louise said. She had postponed their departure and then, when the wedding was called off, postponed it further. I supposed she would try to come for my father’s funeral.

I was back at the house now but still disinclined to enter its empty dimness. Instead I did something I’d promised myself never to do again: I went round to the stables.

K dropped Fiona at the station and drove out to the small town’s only café. After three weeks it had become a habit. It was not yet eight and it made him only slightly guilty to luxuriate in coffee, toast and bacon, while his wife was sitting on the train on her way to work. Doubtless she was already immersed in her files, boning up on whatever brand she was trying to reinvent. Fiona liked her job and was pleased to be able to support her husband. He was proud of her – and grateful.

After all, he wouldn’t stay long in the café. He wiped melted butter from his chin and called for the bill. Writing was an experiment. He’d given himself a year off what even tactful Fiona called ‘real work’ and he mustn’t waste too many minutes. Trying not to feel complacent – the writing muse, he suspected, wouldn’t lend itself to the complacent – he walked to his car and drove back the mile to the Laceys’ house.

But it was hard not to feel foolishly optimistic. It was a glorious May morning, the green of the trees still fresh and youthful, the air just a little crisp, the sun already gilding the tops of the hedges. He drove slowly up the driveway, with its artfully placed ‘Concealed Entrance’ sign and, as always, felt a glow of pleasure at the perfection of the house and garden. He had never dared expect to spend time in such surroundings. Even his area, the coach-house, was swept and clean, the red-brick smooth, the woodwork painted a smart ultramarine. Today the horse was peering out of one of the stables. Catherine had introduced him to it, as his nearest neighbour, so in passing he patted the large smooth nose, which made it snort and stamp its feet a little. He passed on quickly to his own door, also painted a shiny blue.

He found the right key and climbed the wooden flight of stairs to his study, his writing room. Visions of Vita Sackville-West’s study in the tower at Sissinghurst, which he had once visited, often increased his satisfaction at this point. He knew it was absurd: a forty-year-old advertising copywriter likening himself in 1990 to an aristocratic lady novelist of the thirties but he was serious about his writing. This was real: his passion for words, his determination to shape them into something more than commercial jingles. He remembered reading an interview with Evelyn Waugh in which he stated that words, not character or plot, were the driving force behind his fiction.

While Fiona had been finding her feet in her work, he had been the wage-earner, successful enough to buy their little house in this fold of green just outside London’s sprawl. Now it was his turn, his chance.

K looked at his desk with satisfaction. It was simple: ten feet of wood planking, seasoned but not painted, laid across trestles. To his right an Anglepoise lamp, to his left a lap-top (bought second-hand from his previous employers), and in the middle, laid carefully side by side, three piles of white paper. One pile was blank, one was decorated with his own angular handwriting, the other, much smaller, was covered with print. This was the sum of his first three weeks – a challenging blank, impulsive notes, and notes typed into some kind of order. He had given himself a month for such throat-clearing.

Under the desk, in a wire tray, was a high pile of lined yellow paper, also covered with jottings, some printed, the fruit of the years before. An older colleague, also keen to be a novelist, had once shown him a filing cabinet in which, over thirty years, he’d meticulously stowed away all the felicitous phrases and sentences that he planned to incorporate eventually into his great work. Since he was nearly at retirement age and no great work had ensued, K had seen it as a warning: notes for a month, then get started. He had recently given up yellow pads as too affected. Copywriting might not have been his cup of tea