Smelling of Roses
by Clare Colvin

I hear them as they move about the house.   I hear their laughter, the squalling of a child, feet running up and downstairs.   Sometimes the wife comes into the bedroom and places a posy of flowers on the dressing table, which signals the arrival of a guest.  I am aware of people moving around the room, of the bed creaking, of curtains being drawn and undrawn.   I cannot see them distinctly for that requires more energy than I possess.   I feel no empathy with the wife, she seems too far removed from me.  But occasionally a person arrives whom I recognize.   I am aware of them before they even enter the room.  I can scent them.  It happens rarely, once in a decade perhaps, and I wait, and hope.  Today I can smell the difference in the air. It is happening again.

Juliet was standing at the front door, in her hand a Harrods carrier bag containing a few clothes and cosmetics.  There were bruises round her neck and a discoloured swelling over her eye.  As Laura opened the door, Juliet burst into tears.  Laura put her arms around her, guided her to the kitchen and sat her down in a chair.  Don’t try to explain, she said, let me get you some tea, take your time.
Once she had poured the tea, Laura’s curiosity could be contained no more.  She said in a soothing voice, though with a hint of avidity, ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘He’s mad,’ said Juliet.  Her eyes had the blankness that comes with shock.  ‘He’s certificable, he’s paranoid with jealousy.  Look!’
She drew out of the Harrods bag a cardboard placard with a string loop attached.  On it was written in capital letters with a black felt-tip: I AM A FAITHLESS BITCH.
‘He told me to wear it round my neck and when I refused he beat me up.’
Her shoulders shook with sobs.  Laura, patting her hand and fighting back the feeling of mirth that welled up inside her, said, ‘There, there, you’re safe now,’ and then, momentarily alarmed, ‘He doesn’t know where you are, does he?’
‘I went upstairs, shoved a few things in the bag, then made a run for it when he had to answer the phone.  I was in the car starting the engine by the time he got to the door, and he couldn’t do anything because there was a policeman going by.’
‘Could you have told the police?’ asked Laura, but Juliet cried all the more.
‘I’m so ashamed x I’m so tiredx’
Laura got to her feet, accepting the inevitable.  ‘Come, I’ll show you to the spare room and then you can rest as long as you like.  And I don’t want you to worry about where to go next.  Think of this as your sanctuary for a while.’
As Laura drove to school to fetch Benjie she rehearsed in her mind what she would say to Mark that evening.  The conversation ran as she had feared.
Mark:  How long will this lame duck of yours be staying?
Laura: She’s a friend and she’s in trouble.  You know that Brian is an absolute bastard.
Mark:  So he is but she didn’t have to marry him.  Was she unfaithful?
Laura (heatedly): Why should it matter?  Is that a reason for beating her up?
Mark:  Well, was she?
Laura:  She was vague, but I think the answer is probably no.
Mark:  What is the point of living quietly in the country if we’re going to get involved in messy metropolitan dramas?
Laura:  I promise that she won’t stay for long.
 
She is resting and I can hear her breathing evenly now that the crying has subsided.  I am aware of her every movement though she is not yet aware of me.  She turns in bed and I feel myself turning.  The sheets were always so smooth, so cool.  Such fine linen – I can feel them now wrapping me in their white drifts.
 
Juliet stretched her hands above her head.  She touched the polished mahogany of the bedhead, and felt the smoothness of the newly laundered sheets against her body.  She got out of bed and walked over to the window to draw back the curtains.  The room filled with the golden light of early evening and the walls glowed with an abundance of roses.  They were not the scattered sprigs or bunches that you see in contemporary versions of old-fashioned wallpaper but a dense mass of blooms without background space.  She looked more closely at the astonishing detail of the paper.  The flowers were painted like eighteenth-century Dutch still-lifes, with a sensitivity to lighting, each petal lit in the sunshine of the artist’s imagination.  And as with the Dutch masters, there was a mass of insect life.  Every few feet of the length of the wallpaper a blue butterfly hovered and a little fly with glinting wings settled at intervals on a damask rose from which one petal floated earthwards.
She ran her hand over the wallpaper, feeling the smoothness of what seemed at first sight to be painted in oils.  She smiled to herself.  Laura was such a genius at interior decoration, but then she excelled in everything to do with the home.  She had chosen a loving and sensitive husband to father her children.  She had chosen this spacious Georgian house in a north Oxfordshire village, close enough to Oxford for Mark to feel part of the college where he was a Fellow, but removed from the claustrophobia of university life.  Laura had spent all her free time before the arrival of Benjie travelling to London to select materials and wallpapers, had gathered furniture from country house sales, or had it bequeathed to her by relatives.  Whenever anyone in the family died, Laura’s enquiries, after the preliminary expressions of grief, would turn to the disposal of the furniture.  Her house had become her work of art and she strove towards its perfection.
As Juliet sat at the dressing-table, toning down the bruise over her eye with foundation cream, she reflected on the difference in their lives.  They had begun with the same advantages, yet where Laura had planned and had chosen, Juliet had floundered uncertainly and had been chosen.  Brian was erratic, he drank, but she had been overwhelmed by his love, until he stopped caring.  Their house in Kilburn was a reflection of their marriage.  Door handles fell off, window sashes broke, the patio that they were going to whitewash and line with trellis and bay trees developed algae, damp crept up the walls.  Chaos and incompatibility around them and within.  She had thought a discreet affair would do her good, but Brian had tipped from aggression to paranoia. He had sensed her thoughts before anything happened.  The bruises from having her head smashed against the wall were for nothing.
She examined her face in the mirror.  The foundation had diminished the bruise to a shadow, but her face was still pale.  A pale moth, a moth with dark eyes, Brian had said in the days before he became angry.  She put on some more foundation and blackened her lashes with mascara.  She would not dream of appearing in company with naked eyes.
In the small living-room next to the kitchen, Laura and Mark were sitting with their drinks while supper simmered in the oven.  Benjie watched television in his pyjamas.  The only clue that all was not harmony was Mark’s glass of whisky in preference to sherry.  He had erected a newspaper before his face as a barrier against further communication with Laura.  As Juliet entered the living room he lowered the newspaper slowly and folded it before rising to his feet.  She smiled at him uncertainly, but Mark’s politeness forbade him to let her feel ill at ease.  He kissed her on the cheek and said, ‘This is a welcome surprise.  You must flee London more often.’
Laura looked relieved.  She glanced at Juliet and noticed how carefully she had disguised the bruise over her eye, yet at the same time had left the bruises on her neck uncovered, almost like trophies, Laura thought, of her disaster.
 
It is only my will that keeps me here like a small black bat clinging to the hangings of this room.   I will not let go until I have lived.  I am beginning to breathe again, I feel the blood running through my veins.
At first I could only hear her as she invaded the room.  Her shoes dropped near the bed, the creaking of the springs, the sound of her bare feet on the carpet, of her brushing her hair at the dressing-table.  Now I begin to see, dimly then more distinctly, the arm moving, the hand clasped around a black-handled brush.  I wait in stillness, I wonder whether she can hear my heart beating.  Her hair is dark and it lies loosely on her shoulders.  She is putting some coloured ointment on her face, then she brushes her eyelashes with a stick.  She is pretty, though she does not possess my beauty.   The way my hair looped and coiled about my head, with the long curling tendrils around my facexand then I would take out one pin and another and it would cascade to my waist. 
This is my favourite room for the roses remind me of the rose garden, and it is peaceful as I can be on my own.  Dr Hislop was sympathetic when I tried to explain and, besides, I do not think he cares much for Alfred.  He agreed any disturbance to my equilibrium would worsen my nervous condition and he said as much to my husband.  So I am allowed to enjoy ill health.  I stay in bed till ten, rest in the afternoon and retire again soon after dinner.  Alfred remains downstairs with the port.  Nowadays he goes to town during the week and stays at his club.  Occasionally I look in the mirror at the healthy young woman masquerading as an invalid, and feel ashamed.
Is she aware of me yet?  I am reaching out to her yet she seems unconscious of me.  She exists outside this room, she can walk and talk, can commune with people.  She can do the things I long to, but this room which is my haven also confines me.   The rose garden must be in full bloom by now, its borders shading from deepest crimson to the faintest blush on white.  Swagged garlands on the pergola, petals like shells on the grass.  Petals that I gazed at with downcast eyes while I listened to the outpouring of another soul.  Has she memories like mine?
 
‘Do you mind if I retire to bed now?” asked Juliet.  ‘I’m feeling completely exhausted.’
‘Of course you are,’ said Laura.  ‘And get up as late as you like.  Apart from the school run, I’ll be around tomorrow.’
Juliet impulsively kissed both Laura and Mark.  ‘You’re wonderful people.  I love you.’
At the threshold of the bedroom she paused, gazing into the darkness.  She sensed, in a curious denseness of the atmosphere, that someone was there.  She hesitated, then switched on the light, but the room was occupied only by the wallpaper and the furniture.  For the first time in weeks, she thought, she would be able to sleep peacefully.  She put on the nightdress Laura had lent her and got into bed.  This room, she thought, is my haven.
 
This room is where I can be at peace for the first time since I left my parents’ house.  I remember the carriage at the door, our two greys in their best harness, proudly aware of the occasion.  Mama embraced me in tears and said, ‘Please remember that whatever happens in your married life is God’s will.  The way to happiness is to obey your husband.’
I wore white silk with roses at the neck and hem, and carried a garland of roses and lilies.  When I lifted my veil Alfred looked at me with the light of worship in his eyes.  It was not until that night when we were finally alone that I remembered Mama’s words.
‘Will you get undressed and come to bed?’ Alfred’s eyes had seemed like grey pebbles and his voice was cold.  His kisses, which were not at first unwelcome, became frenzied.  I struggled against them.  Hold still, he said, and then there was the pain, and his uncontrolled spasms.  I tried to love him after that, as a wife should, but he always was angry as if I had failed him.  It is a memory that I have tried to put aside, but now the room is full of unhappiness.
 
Laura sat at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in her hands.  She glanced at Juliet’s shadowed face and asked, ‘How did you sleep?’
‘Fitfully,’ said Juliet. ‘I had nightmares about Brian when he had had too much to drink.  I hope he doesn’t guess where I am and come here and create a scene.’
‘I sincerely hope not.’  Laura looked worried, and Juliet felt annoyed with herself.  She said, ‘You chose the most beautiful wallpaper for the bedroom.  Where did you find it?’
‘It’s original late Victorian and was here already.  You’d never find anything like it nowadays.’
‘In one of the dreams I was wearing a white silk ballgown and Brian was tearing at it.  I woke up sweating with fear.’
Laura sighed.  ‘Let’s forget about Brian for today.  Why don’t you just go and have a lazy morning by the pool?  I’ll join you later.’
The swimming pool was set in an enclosed garden to the left of the house.   The surrounding stone walls, covered by Virginia creeper, provided a sheltered sun-trap.  Behind the far wall an ash tree cast its shade over part of the garden.  Two white-painted sunbeds were left haphazardly where the weekend bathers had been catching the last light of the evening.  Juliet wheeled one round to face the sun, and found some cushions in the glasshouse by the wall.  She lay back in her borrowed swimsuit and closed her eyes.
 
As she drifted half-awake, she was aware of the chuckling of a blackbird and the hum of many insects.  A small animal rustled in the Virginia creeper.  Under the surface peacefulness the air was alive with the sounds of unnoticed creatures about their daily business of living.  She heard the gate creak and assumed Laura was about to join her.
No one approached and she continued to let her thoughts drift in the sun.  She closed off past and future and free-floated in the present.  There was a rustling noise again, not from the creepers but nearer at hand, then a faint but perceptible gasp.  A voice that seemed to be both by her ear and inside her head, said clearly, ‘This will not do.’  Startled into wakefulness, she sat up and looked around, her first thought being of Brian.  But the walled garden was empty and the voice was not his, in fact it was hard to divine whether it was a man or woman.  The voice of my conscience, she thought.  My mind won’t let me rest, it’s sending me messages.  Now she felt ill at ease in the walled garden and alert to the slightest sound. She was relieved when Laura appeared at the gate.
Later, during lunch on the terrace, Laura, believing it was now time, began to encourage Juliet to put some order into her life.  She talked of injunctions, of suing for divorce, of property matters.
‘You have to be practical and take the initiative, otherwise you’ll find the ground cut from under your feet,’ she said.  ‘And what about the time off you’re having?  Have you told your office?’
Juliet confessed, and it was worse than Laura had thought.  Her company had embarked on redundancies and Juliet was working out her notice.  No job, no marriage.  At times like these Laura was at her best.  In a few minutes she laid out a blueprint for Juliet.  She was to ring her lawyer about the divorce and her office to say that she was staying with friends and would they forward her papers.  No, said Laura, to Juliet’s half-hearted protests, she would be doing them a favour.  Their au pair had left, they were coming up to the summer holiday and they needed someone to babysit and generally help out.  Juliet could stay for a month or two until she sorted herself out.
Juiet murmured gratefully, feeling ever more hopelessly adrift.  Minnie the tabby cat had been watching her with large amber eyes and now, as if she sensed Juliet’s isolation, jumped on to her lap and, after turning round several times and kneading with her paws, settled down with her chin tucked into her chest and an audible purr.  Laura watched the cat indulgently, with the self-same expression of tucked-in contentment.   She had put on weight since having Benjie and her fair hair was beginning to fade.  Behind her the herbaceous border shimmered with the azure spires of delphiniums, the pinks and creams of lupins and the white and gold of marguerites.  Juliet looked around her and sighed.  Laura was so lucky.
‘Luck had nothing to do with it, dearie,’ said Laura crisply.  “You should have seen the state of the place when we bought it.  Garden rampant with weeds, moss all over the lawn, dry rot in the rafters.  The house had been neglected for years, but we could see that it had once been beautifully cared for.  The swimming pool was our final effort.  We had to clear the walled garden which was overgrown with mildewed rose bushes and brambles.  And now we can collapse beside it, but not for long.  Even now I know that I should be weeding the herbaceous border.’
‘And lucky with Mark, too.’
‘That wasn’t luck, either.  That was choice, and fortunately he felt the same.’  Laura’s voice had acquired a certain edge.
 
Juliet’s exhaustion gathered on her in the evenings and she usually retreated early to the rose bedroom.   On the second evening she took with her Minnie the cat, who had been reluctant to leave her lap after dinner, but as she opened the door, Minnie struggled violently, leapt from her arms and ran downstairs.   Juliet shut the door, feeling the room gathering around her.   The silence should have been calming but her mind was filled with images of Brian – Brian standing over the bed, shouting at her, his hair in a wispy halo round his head, his face contorted with rage.   Juliet reached out for the transistor radio and switched it on.   A Radio Three commentator was discussing the work of Johann Strauss.   Juliet listened to the chords of the ‘Blue Danube.’   Soothing, heart-lifting Strauss.   She thought of park bandstands, people in deckchairs, of operetta at Sadler’s Wells, singers circling to the strains of the waltz in dresses of swagged taffeta.  They whirl around close to her, and she is among them, one hand on a smooth alpaca-clad shoulder, her fan swaying in time to the dance.
 
It lifts you out of yourself, out of your daily life, bringing an atmosphere in which for a few hours you bloom.   I feel freer, more light-hearted with a glass of champagne in my hand as I watch the dancers swirling around the ballroom to the polka.   A succession of scents catches at my nostrils.  Jasmine, lavender, bay rum, an undertone of perspiration.   Their faces are flushed, their eyes alight with excitement.   I watch with the matrons, my feet tapping under my gown to the music.   Alfred does not dance.   He has adjourned to the smoking-room with the men who wish to absent themselves from their obligations.
I watch with envy a man talking to a girl who is dressed in ingénue white sprigged with flowers.   He has the self-contained sleekness of a cat.   His evening suit is well cut, his shoulders broad, his waist narrow.   He turns as I watch and his eyes look straight into mine.   How strange that I had not recognized him at first in his transformation.
Another man approaches them to claim the girl for the ‘Blue Danube’ waltz.  Now he is on his own and he walks towards me.  He smiles warmly at me and bows.   How extraordinary, I say, I had not recognized you in your evening wear, Dr Hislop.
‘That is the point of parties, to display facets of yourself that aren’t everyday,’ he says.  ‘And I have never seen you look as elegant as tonight.  Would you do me the honour of accepting this dance?’
Now we are whirling around in the centre of the gathering.   A man bumps against me, Dr Hislop’s arm holds me more firmly to save my balance.  How well you dance, I remark.  Only because you dance so well, he replies.  And what a pity you have danced so little this evening.
The ‘Emperor’ waltz has finally done for me and the band is striking up a mazurka.   We leave the party and wander through the conservatory.   The hard edges of palm leaves brush against my arms, my feet tread the petals of gardenias into the tiles.  I am feeling breathless.   There are two whicker chairs in a glade of ferns and orchids.   The air is warm and humid, moonlight slants through the glass.   In this seclusion, everything we say is heightened with significance.   I feel as if I have been starved of conversation, and now I can talk for ever.
It may be an hour later that I suggest we have been here rather too long.   Surely Dr Hislop should be squiring the young girls who are, after all, searching for husbands, and a bachelor is supposed to be in need of a wife.
He laughs and says, ‘They only have eyes for our hostess’s eldest son.   I’m not high on the list of eligible men.  Besides,’ and he looks into my eyes, ‘I would rather be here with you.’
It is too late to turn the remark lightly, for he has leant forward, looking into my eyes as he asks earnestly, ‘Would you allow me to call on you – as a friend?’
‘Please do,’ I whisper, then try to retrieve the situation.  ‘Alfred would be delighted to seex’ but he raises one hand and says, ‘Enough.  I’ll visit you next Wednesday afternoon.’
How strange, a few words, and one’s life is changed.   We return to the party.   He dances with the flower-sprigged maiden, I sit with the matrons.   Alfred returns from the smoking-room, his clothes exuding cigar smoke, his breath smells of port.   In the carriage on our way home, he senses a change in my mood and asks, ‘With whom did you talk tonight?’
‘With Mrs Earnshaw, Mrs Jopling, Lady Carstairs, for the most part,’ I reply.  ‘I should have liked to have danced with you, but you were not there.’
The carriage rolls on.   In the dim light I feel his eyes watching me.   I look straight ahead, immersed in a world of my own.
A light breeze ruffled the curtains.  Juliet stretched out to pick up her watch from the bedside table.   The aftermath of sleep remained and as she looked at her arm extended towards the watch she remembered its smooth whiteness in the dream.  She got out of bed and the ‘Emperor Waltz’ lingered as a refrain in her mind.   She hummed it to herself as, half awake, half asleep, she made her way to the bathroom, tying the sash of her kimono.   She brushed against Mark in the corridor.   He put out his arm in support as she stumbled.
‘I’m sorry, I’m still half asleep,’ she said.
For a few minutes afterwards she felt the impression of his arm on hers in an invisible warmth.
 
The ringing of a telephone during a meal has an urgency as though the caller can’t wait.   Laura was serving out spaghetti alle vongole for dinner.
‘What a time to choosex’ Mark said and picked up the phone.   Irritation turned to concern as he heard the voice of the caller.
 ‘Why, hallo, Brian, yes it’s Mark x Is who here? x Look, could you hang on for a moment x’ and turning to Laura with one hand over the mouthpiece, ‘Bloody Brian is demanding to know if we have Juliet staying here.   What shall I say?’
Laura took the phone from him and answered in her most soothing tones, “Yes, hallo, Brian x What were you asking about Juliet? x Oh, her office said that, did they?   Well, yes, she is staying here.   She’s exhausted and needs to be out of town for a while xNo, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to come here.   She needs absolute quiet x no, she can’t, she’s gone to bed early, we’re having dinner, she’s really not well x’
And so on, the raging at the other end met by a soothing stonewall.   Finally Laura put down the phone and Juliet, staring at her, demanded, ‘Why did you tell him I was here?’
‘I could hardly pretend you weren’t and let him report you to the police as missing.   But you really need to get things moving with your solicitor now.’
‘I’ll do it tomorrow,’ Juliet said.  ‘I’ll be feeling less tired.  I promise.’
 
The pool sparkled with points of light in the midday sun.   Juliet applied her mind to the absorbing task of massaging the shining tracks of sun cream into her skin.   Against the blue towel her legs glistened.   She looked up to see Mark, stretched out on a sunbed a few yards away, watching her.   In the sunlight his eyes were amber and she noticed, as if in a picture, the shape of his face, the light brown hair with one strand that fell forward, the nose she always likened to an Arab horse, concave and wide-nostrilled.
Mark’s eyes shifted from her legs to her face.
‘Were you unfaithful?’ he asked.
Her hands were slippery from the sun cream.   She rubbed them against her cheeks, obscuring her face from him.
‘He thought I was.   He became paranoid with jealousy over imagined things.’
She gave Mark a brief end-of-conversation smile, lay back on her sunbed and closed her eyes.    She felt the peacefulness around her invaded by the unease that comes from being watched.
‘Were you?’ he asked quietly.
She opened her eyes and saw he was still watching her face.
‘I could have been, possibly.   I didn’t have time to find out.   He turned imagination into reality.   Does it matter?’
‘Of course not.   And now you’re free anyway, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’   She heard the change in her voice and felt the bonds of complicity between them.   Her skin registered invisible sensations and she thought, Not Mark, surely?   She was aware of a vacuum into which she was being drawn, an area without rules to keep you secure from anarchy and emptiness.
This won’t do, she thought, and tried to fill her mind with everyday matters.   She breathed in deeply and caught an unmistakable perfume in the air she had not noticed before.   Her nostrils filled with the scent of roses.
‘Don’t the roses smell beautiful?’ she said.  ‘The sun has brought them out in full strength.’
‘What roses?’ asked Mark.  ‘There’s only the one by the gate.’
The scent faded and now she could smell the coconut sun cream and an undertone of swimming pool chlorine.
‘It must have been carried on a breeze,’ she said.  ‘It’s gone, but for a moment it was lovely.’
‘You have a sensitive nose,’ said Mark.  ‘And sensitive skin.   Would you like me to sun-cream your back?’
 
The touch of him remains with me, lingering as an awareness on the skin.   The warmth of his handshake when we first meet, the tentative guiding hand on the small of my back as I ascend the stone steps that reminds me of his hand on my back when we danced.   He is no longer Dr Hislop, for I said to him, We are friends and should not be formal.  Now he is my Edgar, my dear friend, my confidant.   If he were not here to lighten the day I would despair.
His head is dark and sleek as he bends to smell the roses.
‘This one has a scent as rich as its ruby petals,’ he says.   His hand touches mine as I draw the rose to my face.
‘Do you know its name?’ I ask him.  ‘It’s called the Empereur du Maroc.’
‘And this mass of sugar pink here?’
‘The Bourbon Queen.  And here is a white moss rose.   Isn’t it delicate?’
His head bends towards the flowers.   I see strands of his dark hair overlapping his starched collar.   The cloth of his coat is taut across his shoulders.   He turns his head from the roses and meets my eyes.   He smiles at me in the sweetest way and says, ‘You know so much about roses.’
‘They are my favourite flower.   I have decorated my bedroom with the most beautiful rose paper that makes me feel as if I am in my garden again.’
‘I should love to see that paper,’ he murmurs, still gazing at me.   We are standing close together in the warmth of the sun.   There is a midday hush in the air.   I can hear his breathing and see the rise and fall of his chest against his jacket.   I feel the colour come to my cheeks and dare not look at his face.   I turn away and he follows me silently along the path.   The scent of the roses is overwhelming.
He says, and his voice has a constraint in it as if he has not talked for some time, ‘And what is the name of this rose which is growing so profusely?’
I feel my colour heighten as I say, ‘It’s called Maiden’s Blush.’
He laughs and says, ‘It’s your own rose, my dearest, for you’re blushing so prettily.’
His hand touches my burning cheek, then he bends his head so quickly that I do not have time to draw back and kisses me.
‘I have longed to do that ever since I met you,’ he says.  We gaze at each other, and now at last I understand all the verses I have read, all the extravagant words of the poets, for I, too, am fathoms deep in love.   I am alight with love, flooded and on fire with it.
‘This will not do,’ I tell him, but the words mean nothing to either of us.   I hear behind me the sound of the gate creaking, but no one comes into the garden.   No one exists but the two of us.
 
The rose wallpaper gathers round to form a barrier of flowers against the outside world.   She longs for that blotting out of her life, that forgetfulness that comes to her only in this room.   The roses slide and blur as her eyes close, and on the edge of her mind hovers the question, What is happening between me and Mark?
Sometimes when she gets out of bed at night she has the sensation of being detached from her body.   Her feet, reaching for her slippers, seem not part of her.   It’s like watching the feet of a stranger.   Her hand reaches out to switch on the lamp and yet it is not her hand.   She watches her arm as if it is someone else’s, pale in the lamplight.   As she sits on the edge of the bed she is watching herself, a young woman, dark-haired and slight, half dreaming, half awake.   And the dream was something to do with Mark.   He was close to her, smiling at her.   It is fading already, but she remembers the scent of the roses.
 
At night it is easy to reach her, when she is drifting to sleep and the watchguards of the mind sleep too.   I can feel the bedclothes as she turns, as I turn.   My feet reach for the slippers she left by the bed.   I switch on the lamp and she picks up her book but she cannot read, I cannot read, our mind is elsewhere.   His smile in the garden, and all those years I have waited since, with only my will to exist.   I place the book back on the table.   Look at my hand, how slim and small it is.  I have always admired fine hands.
 
The house was quiet in the mornings after Mark had departed for the day and Laura had taken Benjie to school.  Juliet sat at the kitchen table over a cup of coffee, glancing at the headlines of The Times.   The ringing of the telephone was raucous as it broke into the silence.   She picked up the receiver and as she did so, she knew it was Brian.
She could not remember the conversation afterwards but they seemed to be talking in circles for hours.   First he pleaded, then he threatened, then after an emotional appeal to remember their happier times, he said, ‘I’m coming down to sort this out.  It’s useless talking on the phone.’
She could hardly speak for the dryness in her mouth.  ‘Please don’t.  I don’t want you to come here.’
That set him off into a morass of suspicion.   Why did she not want him there?   Who was she with?   His voice heightened its pitch.  He shouted, ‘You can’t stop me seeing you.  You’re still my wife.’
‘What do you mean, Brian?  I really must go, I’m too tired to talk any more.’
This provoked another outburst and she put down the phone.  It began to ring again and she went out into the garden until it stopped.  As she returned to the house she heard the front door slam, and froze in alarm but it was only Laura back from the school run.
Laura looked at her in concern.  ‘Are you all right, Juliet?’
‘It was just Brian on the phone being difficult.’ Juliet sat down at the kitchen table.  ‘Do you think I should go?   I don’t want him coming down here and making a scene.   It’s not fair on you because you’ll get involved.’
Laura put an arm round her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about that, but I do think you should be sorting things out.   What did your solicitor say?’
Juliet confessed that he was away when she rang and she hadn’t yet rung him back.
‘You should,’ said Laura.  ‘It’s exhausting being in limbo as you are.  Sometimes you look as if you’re not quite in this world.   You must try to get a grip on things again.’
‘Not quite in this world,’ Juliet repeated softly for it described how she had felt for several days.
‘I’ll pull myself together,’ she promised.  ‘I’ll ring up this afternoon.’
Laura looked pleased, as if something positive had been achieved, and now she could get on with other matters.
 
The university long vacation had begun and Mark was more often at home than in Oxford.  He worked in his study in the mornings, then spent the afternoon gardening and swimming.  Laura continued her part-time job in Oxford three days a week, dropping Benjie at play school on the way.   The household timetable was leisurely, the summer turning out to be one of the good years when the garden was more lived in than the house.
‘Do you know how lucky you and Laura are?’ Juliet watched Mark clipping the hedge that shielded the kitchen garden from the main lawn.  Laura was in Oxford and Mark had given up work for the day.
‘I’ve got a shrewd idea,’ said Mark.  ‘If you rake up the clippings and put them in the wheelbarrow, that’ll be a great help.’
Juliet raked and piled the twigs into the wheelbarrow.
‘I weeded the entire herbaceous border this morning,’ she said.
‘I think we both deserve a rest.’  Mark turned to smile at her, the blades of the shears poised immobile, several twigs in their grip.
‘As soon as I’ve finished this.’  He drew the handles together, the twigs fell to the ground.  Juliet raked and watched as he clipped the rest of the hedge.  He put the shears down on the barrow and said, ‘That’s enough for the moment.  Let’s take a walk round the estate and then have a swim.’
There is an orchard at the end of the garden where Mark has planted new trees at intervals, spindly and straight among the craggy, lichen-fringed branches of the old trees.  As they walk through the orchard, Juliet feels the sensation of aliveness on her skin, of the closeness of him, of being drawn closer.   She looks sideways at him and catches in his eyes a speculative awareness.  His hand slides round her waist, and he guides her towards the great beech tree at the edge of the orchard.   Its branches sweep towards the ground, forming a canopy.  Stepping through them, they are in a hushed and vaulted space, the tree’s trunk like a stone pillar extending into a filigree of arches.   Dry leaves and beech husks rustle beneath their feet.   They turn to look at each other and the tension can only be broken if one turns away.   But neither does, and slowly, inevitably their faces draw closer.  They pause, breathing in each other, then Mark touches Juliet’s lips with his.  She sighs, her lips part, and the tentative kiss becomes mouth-searching and long.  Eventually Mark draws back, his mouth shining as if covered with sweat.   He says, ‘This won’t do.’
‘Won’t it?’ asks Juliet.
‘You know that I find you attractive.  But I have to think about Laura as well.’
‘There’ll be no trouble,’ says Juliet.  ‘Just a little affection – that’s all I need.’
‘It’s not as easy as that,’ says Mark. ‘I wish that it were.’
He takes her hand and leads her back into the garden.  A little while later they are by the swimming pool.   Mark is massaging sun cream onto Juliet’s back.
‘You smell of coconut,’ he says, bending forward and kissing the back of her neck.  His hand slides round and touches her breast.  Juliet thinks, It is beginning to happen at last.
 
And yet it was there from the start.   He was so restrained, so delicate.  Only betrayed by the ardour in his eyes, by the way his hands would find a reason to touch me.   Since that day he first kissed me, the village has never had such an attentive doctor, and if no one is ill, he arrives in any case.  I no longer make any excuses for him being here.  What the servants may think is not my concern.
Sometimes he will look at me and sigh, ‘If only . . .’
Ah yes, if only . . .  If only I were not married, if only my husband were dead . . . How happy I would be living here with Edgar.
‘If only . . .’ he sighs and then exclaims, ‘Oh, if you knew how difficult this is for me.  How I burn to be close to you, to be part of you, to love you fully.   If you truly loved me, you would let me love you.’
We are sitting in our favourite bower in the rose garden, on the wooden bench under the archway of climbing roses.  It is late summer, the petals are scattered like confetti over the grass, the rose-hips are ripening.
‘You do not love me,’ he says.
‘Oh, I do, my dearest.  Don’t be so cruel as to doubt me.’
‘Then show me.’  His lips touch mine, gently at first, then more firmly, and suddenly I am no longer myself.   I am dizzy, my soul melts towards him, I am drowning in love.  He crushes me to him and cries out as if in pain.
We are half lying on the bench.  The arm rest is a ridge against my back, thorns are entangled in my hair.
‘Will you let me come to you tonight?’ he asks.
‘Not tonight, Alfred will be back.  Next week when he returns to London.  I promise you then.’
‘Love does not make appointments,’ he says.
‘Love that is married does.’
He laughs and kisses my hand.   ‘Till next week, then.’
I watch him depart, eloquent with love, and wait in the garden until I feel composed enough to go in.   As I enter the house from the terrace, I hear the front door close.   Alfred comes in.  He stares at me, coldly suspicious.
‘What was the doctor doing here?’ he asks.
‘He was attending someone in the village and called in to see if we were well.  He particularly asked after you.’
Alfred is looking at me strangely.   His eyes take in my dishevelled hair.
‘He rode by hell for leather and nearly collided with my hansom.’
‘Oh tut,’ I say lightly, but Alfred grasps my wrist, twisting me round to face him and says, in a low voice, ‘Don’t you ever play false with me.’
I hear the venom in him, see the hatred in his eyes, and a chill goes through me.
‘How dare you?   Let go of me.’   I pull away from him.  He loosens his hold and I walk towards the stairs.  I hear him call, ‘Stop, I haven’t finished,’ but I pay no heed.  Then I hear his voice behind me, its harsh, deliberate tone:  ‘I warn you, my dear, if you will not love me, you will love no one.’
I bow my head from the force of his words, which sound like a curse.  I can feel his eyes at my back, I can feel without seeing them their malign strength.  It seems to take an eternity to reach the top of the stairs.
 
How quiet the house is without Laura and Mark.  Benjie is tucked up in bed.  Juliet is babysitting for the evening while they go to a dinner in Oxford.
‘Will you be all right on your own?’ Laura had asked.  Juliet seemed to be growing more nervous by the day.
‘I’ll be fine.  I’m glad to be able to help you.  Enjoy your evening, don’t worry about me.’
‘Don’t answer the phone if it rings, and double-lock the door.’
Over Laura’s head, Mark’s eyes met Juliet’s.  As he left the room, his hand touched hers.
Now they are gone and Juliet is alone.   The evenings have begun to draw in.  The light fades from the garden and the air grows cool.  As dusk gathers, first in shadows in the depths of the garden then spreading like a dark mist towards the house, she walks from room to room, drawing the curtains to keep the darkness at bay.   Laura’s curtains, lined and padded, sweeping from pinch-pleated pelmets down to the floor, insulate her from outside.  She ascends the curved staircase, her feet cushioned by Wilton, and feels the uneasiness that has come to her sometimes in the evening on the staircase, a feeling that she is being watched.  She turns but sees nothing below except the stone-flagged floor with the rose-coloured Persian carpet, hears nothing but the ticking of the grandfather clock.  She walks more swiftly towards the landing and her heart begins to race.  She reaches her room, switches on the light and closes the door.  She feels the curious thickness of the atmosphere, a density almost as if there were another dimension to the room.  She goes to draw the curtains and looks out at the garden, over which the rising moon casts its indistinct light.  In the stillness she sees, or perhaps it is a trick of her eyes, a shadow that seems to move near the walled garden.  Quickly drawing the curtains, she sits for a while on the bed, trying to control her breathing.  She tells herself it is only because Mark and Laura are out that she feels threatened by being alone.  She goes to Benjie’s room and looks in through the half-open door.  A night light casts a soft glow.  She can hear the child’s breathing and see the small shape in the bed, peacefully asleep.  She feels reassured.
Downstairs in the kitchen she puts the ready-made lasagne Laura has left her into the oven and switches on the radio.  It is playing atonal music.  She switches it off.  She retreats to the living-room and switches from one television channel to another while she waits for the lasagne to heat.  Thank heavens for television, for the sheer mind-numbing inanity of it.  A fat man is making hammy expressions and flapping his hands, to an outburst of studio laughter.  She lets it wash over her until the kitchen timer pings.
The lasagne is burnt at the edges.  She has a glass of the red wine they had opened last night.  She thinks about Mark.  What is he up to?  What is she playing at?  She thinks, I could live here very happily with Mark.  She switches on the radio again.  Someone is talking about Goethe in self-satisfied tones.  She switches it off.
She returns to the living-room.  Minnie the cat is curled up in a chair.  Juliet watches the almost imperceptible movement of her breathing.  One paw is stretched over the nose, shading the closed crescents of her eyes.  Juliet feels affection towards Minnie and scoops her up into her arms.  Minnie glares at Juliet and struggles out of her grasp.  She streaks from the room.  Juliet is left feeling alone and rejected.
There is nothing to watch on television so she picks up her book and begins reading.  One part of her mind reads, the other listens to the sounds of the house.  Her heightened senses hear murmurs and creaks that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.  It’s the house settling at night, she tells herself, turning a page.  It’s because of the absolute stillness she is hearing these sounds.  The stillness seems to deepen, to become tangible.  Then in the hushed room she hears a scratching at the window and suddenly all her senses screech an alert.  She imagines fingernails running along the glass.  She waits, listening, then switches off the light beside her and cautiously approaches the window.  She stands to one side and draws back the edge of the curtain.  Through the gap she glimpses the dark outline of a spray of leaves from the rambling roses trained on the wall outside.  It must have brushed against the window in an evening breeze.  That was all, she tells herself.  Her nerves had heightened the sound.
She reads on without concentration until the grandfather clock strikes ten.  As the final stroke fades the telephone rings.  She sits on the edge of the chair, resolving not to answer it.   She waves the remote control at the television and it comes in with News at Ten.  A politician’s voice resounds through the room.  The phone rings on, she turns the volume higher till it assails her ears.  Now a distraught woman with wild grey hair is sobbing at the camera, ‘Please bring her back to us, please don’t harm her.’  The pain on the tormented face is unbearable to watch.  Juliet switches off the screen.  The phone still rings.  She reluctantly picks it up and listens to silence at the other end.  She says Hello, but no one answers.  She listens for breathing and cannot even hear that.  She replaces the receiver and picks it up again.  There is no dialing tone, only silence.  He has not hung up.  His listening presence fills the room. She shuts the receiver into the drawer of Laura’s desk and goes to the front door to make sure it is double-locked.  It is.  The kitchen door is locked and bolted.  Minnie is nowhere to be seen.  She decides to retire to her bedroom and shut away the rest of the house.
At the foot of the stairs she pauses.  In her mind she hears the thought that is so clear it might almost have been spoken.  ‘If I ascend these stairs it will be irrevocable.’  She does not know what that can mean, but as she walks up the stairs she feels as if there is a space parting around her, as if she is walking a pre-destined course.  One foot in front of the other, she moves without volition.  She reaches her room and shuts the door behind her.  A curious sense of detachment descends on her.  She goes through the motion of brushing her hair, at the same time feeling it is not her arm that is moving.  She puts on her nightdress and as the soft lawn folds around her the voice that is both inside and outside her mind says, ‘So it is tonight then.’
She sits before the mirror and as she listens and waits, she looks at the wallpaper.  The flowers have such a freshness and aliveness about them that she would not be surprised if the wings of the painted butterflies quivered.  She thinks, I do believe this room is haunted.  At the same time she doesn’t wish to leave the room for the uneasiness she feels in the rest of the house, for the vulnerability of the tall ground-floor windows to the outside, the disconnected phone with its silent caller.  She continues to brush her hair and listen, then she gets into bed and reads for a while.  She switches off the light and switches it on again, for in the darkness she is suddenly on edge.  The switching on and off of the light is repeated several more times.  Her eyes, heavy-lidded with sleep, demand rest though her mind races.  She tells herself that Mark and Laura will be back soon, and the house is securely locked.  She pulls the bedclothes over her ears and turns towards the wall.  She falls asleep.
She is dreaming.  In her dream she hears the sound of footsteps on the flagstones in the hall.  They are walking back and forth in slow and heavy deliberation.  There is quietness now, for the feet are ascending the carpeted stairs.  She can hear movement outside on the landing, then the sound of a door handle turning.  She is aware that she is dreaming, and yet at the same time she’s half awake.  Whoever is outside has paused for a moment as if listening.  The door begins to open.  She whispers, ‘Mark?’  There is only silence and now, in her waking dream, she reaches her hand out to the lamp.  It falls to the floor and, wide awake, heart pounding, she cries out.  Just before the hands grasp her throat she senses a malignity that fills the room.
She is struggling against the hands, against the body whose weight lies over hers, and at the same time nothing is there to struggle against.  She feels its force and solidity, yet as she tries to ward it off, her hands touch only the air.  She wrenches at the hands on the throat and she is grasping at her own hands.  In the emptiness a sour smell of whisky fills her nostrils.  Someone is there and not there.  She screams out, tearing at the bedclothes as she fights against the weight that overwhelms her.
Why is he here?  What has happened?  I fight him with all my strength.  I will not give in.  I will not be cheated of life.  I will live for my love . . . I shall live . . .
 
With the final days of September comes an autumnal coolness.  Mark and Laura are glowing with un-English tans from their fortnight on a Greek island.  In the pale surroundings of the hospital their health shines all the more robustly.  A nurse in white starched cotton and dark stockings leads them to a small sunny room.  They can see Juliet sitting in an armchair by the window, wearing a grey track suit.
‘She’s been up and about for several days,’ said the nurse.  ‘She’s quite energetic at times.’
Juliet smiled politely at Mark and Laura.  ‘How nice of you to come and see me again.  You are looking well, though you have caught the sun.’
Laura sat down on the bed and told Juliet about their holiday, about the beaches, the tavernas, the ferry boat rides.  Juliet smiled, though she seemed not to be taking it in.  When Laura paused, she said, ‘I would find Greece far too hot at this time of year.’
Laura glanced at Mark who looked bored and embarrassed.
‘How are you getting on here, anyway?’ asked Laura.  ‘You’re looking so much better.’
 ‘I’m safe here,’ said Juliet.  ‘There’s a nice young doctor looking after me.  We get on very well.’
Mark made signs at Laura.  She got up from the bed.
‘The doctor won’t let Alfred come and see me,’ said Juliet. ‘Even though he shouted and stormed.’
‘Brian,’ Laura gently corrected her. ‘Your husband, Brian.’
Juliet looked at her blankly.
As they reached their car in the hospital yard, Laura said to Mark, ‘Well, that’s over for another week.  And they won’t keep her in much longer, anyway.  Even raging schizos get thrown back on the streets.’
Mark drove along the Oxford bypass to their turning and the miles of deep, winding lanes that led to their house.  He said, ‘Let’s hope we don’t have another of your friends in a mess descending on us.’
‘My friends?’ asked Laura. ‘I thought she was your friend as well.’
She turned to watch his face. ‘You know, at one moment I even thought she was making a pass at you.’
Mark glanced at her, but he was wearing dark glasses and she could not see his eyes.
‘How fanciful you are,’ he said.
Back at the house, Laura gathered a spray of late roses to put on the dressing-table for their weekend guest.  She paused on the threshold of the room.  The wallpaper was beginning to look faded and old.  The time might have come, she decided, to redecorate.
On the bedspread a bundle of tabby fur was asleep, one paw stretched over its face.  Dear little Minnie, thought Laura, always looking for a quiet and comfortable spot to curl up in. Of late, this room seemed to have become her favourite place.
end