More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“I think a conservatory is the most enviable of rooms. One day, if I ever have a proper house of my own, I shall build one. Just as big and spacious and sunny as this.” “And will you fill it with tiger skins and brass gongs?” She smiled. “Papa says all that’s missing is the punkah wallah.”
And I love the Watson-Grants.” “How about Miss Pawson and Miss Preedy?” “Oh, they’re lesbians.” “I suspected. And the Trubshots?” “The Trubshots are a cross we all mutually bear.
Across the table, Richard listened, his eyes upon her, his face quiet. She realized that she was saying things that she had never been able to bring herself to tell to Ambrose.
Laughing at herself, she undressed, turned off the lights, drew back the curtains, and got into bed; to lie wide-eyed, watching the dark sky beyond the open window, hearing the murmur of the sea, feeling the beat of her own heart; to go over, in her mind, every single word that he had spoken during the course of the evening.
On the contrary, she was aware only of a sort of timelessness, as though it was all part of a plan, a predestined design, conceived the day she was born. What was happening to her had been meant to happen, was going to go on happening. Without any recognizable beginning, it did not seem possible that it could ever have an end.
“If we had some tea and some milk, we could boil a kettle and have a hot cup of tea.” “That’s about as good as saying if we had some bacon, we could have bacon and eggs, if we had some eggs.” He pulled up a stool and sat facing her. There was a streak of soot on his right cheek but she didn’t tell him about it.
“September has come, it is hers Whose vitality leaps in the autumn, Whose nature prefers Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace. So I give her this month and the next Though the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered already So many of its days intolerable or perplexed But so many more so happy. Who has left a scent on my life, and left my walls Dancing over and over with her shadow Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls And all of London littered with remembered kisses.”
All of London littered with remembered kisses.
Her hand was freezing cold but his touch was warm, and she closed her fingers around his wrist, needing his warmth, willing it to spread, to reach every part of her being. Instinctively, she lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek. At precisely the same moment, they both spoke. “I love you.” She looked up and into his eyes. It was said. It was done. It could never be unsaid.
I only knew that everything changed colour when you walked through the door.
and they kissed like lovers who have been parted for years. And it was like coming home, and hearing a door being shut, and knowing that you were safe; with the intrusive world shut out, and nothing and nobody to come between you and the only person in the world you wanted to be with.
She said, “What will happen?” “How do you mean?” “What will we do?” “Continue to love each other.”
I want there to be tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and to know that on all those tomorrows I can spend every waking hour with you.” “I want that too.” He sounded sad. “But it’s not to be.”
“But how will it end?” “There’s a war on. We don’t know how anything’s going to end. We just have to grasp each fleeting moment of joy as it whizzes by. If he loves you and you love him, then you just go ahead.
My darling girl. Happy Christmas. This has come to you from across the Atlantic. A good friend of mine was in New York, where his cruiser was re-fitting, and he brought it back when they returned to England. To me, the scent of Chanel No. 5 evokes everything that is glamorous and sexy and light-hearted and fun. Lunch at the Berkeley; London in May with the lilac blossom out; laughter, and love; and you. You are never out of my thoughts. You are never out of my heart. Richard.
It was the same dream. She thought of it as Richard’s country. Always the same.
On just such a day, Richard found himself free, without any pressing demands upon his time, and they were able, at last, to return to the studio. To light the fire and let it light their love; to inhabit once more their own private and secret world; to assuage their separate needs and allow them to become a single, shining entity.
You wouldn’t object to driving me to Roseland in a borrowed Bentley fuelled with Black Market petrol?” “No. Provided that I have a written affidavit to the effect that we’re not going to end up in jail.”
“Sleep to the noise of running water Tomorrow will be crossed, however deep; There is no river of the dead or Lethe Tonight we sleep On the banks of the Rubicon—the die is cast There will be time to audit The accounts later, there will be sunlight later And the equation will come out at last.”
“Leaving you will be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” She thought about his going and the emptiness beyond. Tried to imagine life without him and, dismally, failed. Only one thing was certain. “The worst will be saying goodbye.” “Then don’t let’s say it.”
Richard was gone. Penelope learned to live without him, because there was no alternative. You couldn’t say “I can’t bear it” because if you didn’t bear it, the only other thing to do was to stop the world and get off, and there did not seem any practical way to do this.
On reading this through, it strikes me as the letter of a happy man who expects to live forever. For some reason, I have no fears that I will not survive the war. Death, the last enemy, still seems a long way off, beyond old age and infirmity. And I cannot bring myself to believe that fate, having brought us together, did not mean us to stay that way.
And in this life, nothing good is truly lost. It stays part of a person, becomes part of their character. So part of you goes everywhere with me. And part of me is yours, forever.
She looked at Richard’s face. Nevermore. Never again. Nothing left. She saw his smile. Remembered his voice reading aloud to her.
There will be sunlight later. She thought, I must tell Papa that. And it seemed as good a way as any to start out on the left-over life that lay ahead.
and now, across the years, the face of love no longer stirred up agonies of grief and bitterness. Rather, one was left feeling simply grateful. For how unimaginably empty the past would be without him to remember.
“You’re quite happy with the arrangement?” “Yes. Quite happy.” “In that case, goodbye, Mrs. Keeling…” “No, Mr. Brookner, wait. There’s something else.” “Yes.” “It’s about The Shell Seekers.” “Yes?” She told him what she wanted him to do.
like Noel Coward’s Private Lives.
“Oh, tea.” Doris’ voice dismissed the idea of anything so tame. “We forgot about tea. We’ve been talking and laughing so much, we forgot all about having tea.”
“I dunno. Richard being killed like that … it was cruel. I always found it hard to forgive God for letting that man be killed. If ever there was a man who should have lived … it stays with me, that day we heard. It was one of the worst things that happened during the war. And I could never get it out of my head that, when he died, he took part of you with him, and left no part of himself behind.”
“Darling, I’m not quite an atheist. I just can’t help being slightly sceptical. And Easter is always particularly disturbing, with the Resurrection and the promise of afterlife. I can never quite bring myself to believe it. And although I would adore to see Sophie and Papa, there are dozens of other people I can very well do without ever seeing again. And just imagine the crush! Just like being invited to the most enormous, boring cocktail party, where you spend your whole time looking for the amusing people you really want to see.”
She had given Nancy what she had given all her children. A home, security, comfort, interest, a place to bring their friends, a stout front door to keep them safe from the outside world. She thought of the big basement in Oakley Street, smelling of garlic and herbs, and warm from the big stove and the open fire. She remembered them all, chattering like sparrows and hungry as hunters, pouring in on dark winter evenings from school; to drop their satchels, tear off their coats, and settle down to consume vast quantities of sausages, pasta, fish cakes, hot buttered toast, plum cake, and cocoa.
...more
“No. I never told them, never spoke his name. For forty years I never spoke of him. Until the other day when I was with Doris, and she talked of Richard as though he’d just that moment walked out of the room. It was lovely. Not sad any longer. I lived with sadness for so long. And a loneliness that nothing and nobody could assuage. But, over the years, I came to terms with what had happened. I learned to live within myself, to grow flowers, to watch my children grow; to look at paintings and listen to music. The gentle powers. They are quite amazingly sustaining.”
“I am too tired to walk up the hill. We’ll ask that long-haired young man to phone for a taxi to take us back to the hotel. And I shall leave The Shell Seekers and all the memories of my past behind me. Right here; in this funny little Gallery, where they all started, and where it is entirely appropriate that they should end their days.”
“I am fortunate. I have my heart in two places, so wherever I am, I am content.”
“No,” Penelope told her. “I regret nothing.”
Much had been discussed, decided, and accomplished. There was nothing more to be done. Achievement had been reached, but it had all been exhausting, and she found herself at the end of her rope, both physically and mentally.
Nancy, as though incapable of standing for more than two minutes, pulled out a chair and sat at the table. Her dramatic flight from the old Vicarage to Podmore’s Thatch had apparently left her no time either to comb her hair, powder her nose, or find herself a blouse that matched her skirt. She looked not only distraught but a mess, and Olivia knew a surge of the old, irritated impatience. Whatever happened, good or bad, Nancy always made a drama of it and, moreover, cast herself in the leading role.
She sounded offended, as though, yet again, Penelope had pulled a fast one on her. Olivia half expected her to add, And she never even told us she was planning to die.
The house, bereft of its owner, was a dead house, the shell of a body, its heartbeat stopped. Desolate, strangely silent, it seemed to wait. The quiet was a physical thing, inescapable, pressing like a weight. No footstep, no voice, no rattling saucepans from the kitchen; no Vivaldi, no Brahms burbling in comforting fashion from the tape player on the kitchen dresser. Doors closed, stayed closed.
In the world where Penelope had lived, existed, breathed, listened, remembered, it had been possible to believe that nothing too dreadful could ever go wrong. Or if it did … and to Penelope it had … then there were ways of coping, of accepting, of refusing to admit defeat.
I love him. He is the first man I have ever loved and he feels the same way about me. He loves me, and we have been to bed together, and it wasn’t frightening, the way I always thought it would be, it was just utterly right, and it was magic, all at the same time. I don’t care what the future holds for us, I don’t care about him not having any money. I want him to come back to me just as soon as he can, and if he is ill, I shall wait until he is well again, and I shall take care of him and we will live in the country and grow cabbages together.
Mumma’s room. Stripped of all personal possessions, it stood unbelievably empty. Before long, Podmore’s Thatch would be sold, and this room would belong to another person. There would be other furniture, other clothes, other scents, other voices, other laughter.
And her children had never known. Nor guessed. Nobody had ever known. Somehow, this seemed saddest of all. You should have talked about him, Mumma. Told me. I would have understood I would have wanted to listen. She discovered, to her surprise, that her eyes had filled with tears.
she picked up the book, the letter and the photograph safe within its pages, and went out of the room, closing the door behind her. Downstairs in the deserted kitchen, she took up the heavy iron poker and used it to lift the lid from the boiler. A furnace heat flowed up, scorching her cheeks, and she dropped Mumma’s secret into the heart of the glowing red coals and watched it burn.
“And the guest-room will have a wardrobe filled, not with some other person’s fusty evening dresses and moth-eaten fur coats, but with twenty-four brand-new coat-hangers?” “All padded.” “In that case”—Olivia sat back in her chair—“you’d better get busy. Because I shall come.”
