The Peacock Emporium(69)
“I—I’ve never thought of you—”
She pushed her hair off her face. “I want you to hand over more of the running of the estate.”
“What?”
“I’d like us to have some time together. Alone. Before I get too old to enjoy it.” And if you don’t want that, she told herself in the ensuing silence, you’ll be telling me what I have feared deep down, all along.
He sat, staring into space. Vivi closed her eyes, trying not to read anything into her husband’s silence, trying to muster the strength to continue. “Most importantly, Douglas, you need to bring Suzanna back in,” she said slowly. “You need to make her feel she’s just as important as the others.”
“I’ll make sure Suzanna has an equal financial—”
“No, you’re misunderstanding me. It’s not about the money. You need to allow Suzanna the same sense of family, the same sense of belonging.”
“I’ve never discriminated against—”
“You’re not hearing me, Douglas—”
“I’ve always loved Suzanna just the same—you know I have.” His voice was angry, self-justifying.
“It’s Athene.”
“What?”
“You need to stop behaving as if Athene is a dirty word.” At least in one area I can swallow my own feelings and do the right thing, Vivi said silently. She remembered, suddenly, how she had been introduced to Athene formally at Douglas’s first wedding. How the girl, exquisite and oddly spectral in her wedding finery, had smiled vaguely and looked straight through her. As if she were invisible.
Below them, the roar died down, leaving just the sound of the breeze.
His hand had crept into hers. She opened her eyes, feeling the familiar roughness, the stiff fingers surrounding her own. Beside her, Douglas coughed awkwardly into his free hand. “I don’t know if this is going to be easy to explain, Vee . . . but you’ve misunderstood me. I don’t hate her. Even with what she did.” He looked at his wife, his jaw set against remembered pain. “You’re right—I never wanted to talk about Athene . . . not because she made me uncomfortable, not because I was frightened of making Suzanna feel different from the others . . . Well, maybe in part that was it, but mainly it was because I didn’t want to hurt you. Whether she intended it or not, she damaged so many people. You protected us for all these years, and you pulled it all back together . . . I . . .” He faltered and raised his hand to his thinning hair. “I love you, you know.” His fingers closed tightly now around hers. “Really I do. And I just didn’t want her to have the opportunity . . . to damage you too.”
* * *
—
Suzanna had been sitting alone outside, her long, pale legs stretched out in the sun, her face tipped to the endless blue sky, perversely enjoying the absence of customers. Mrs. Creek had sat over her milky coffee for almost an hour, muttering darkly about the lack of biscuits, while Jessie chattered on about some outfit for a school play she was meant to have made until Suzanna sent the two of them off together to get on with it. It was not the right sort of afternoon for working. Too hot. Too humid. I have lost my London habits in some things, she mused, noting how other traders had also set up chairs outside, loitered on doorsteps, seemingly unworried by the shortage of customers, content to enjoy the moment. She was still having trouble explaining this to Neil: in the capital, shops rose and fell on profit and loss, were judged by their columns of figures, dealt in notions of footfall, turnover, and exposure. Here, she thought, remembering her conversation with Jessie, they were like a public service. A focal point for people who lived often isolated lives.
When she saw him, his long stride too swift, too determined for the sleepy afternoon, she had scooted her legs under her, adjusted her shirt, as if caught doing something she shouldn’t. From the end of the lane, he motioned at her as if to indicate that she need not rise on his account, but by the time he reached the shop she had disappeared inside, was already filling the coffee machine in the cool gloom.
She found it difficult to look up when she heard him come in. When she did, keeping her expression neutral, she saw that he looked awful. He was unshaven, his eyes shadowed with fatigue. “Espresso?”
“Yes. No. Do you still have iced tea?” (She had introduced it when coffee sales began to fall in the heat.)
“Sure.”
For someone whose movements were normally so measured, whose demeanor was so quiet, he seemed distracted, and unable to settle. “You mind if I smoke?” he had asked, when she handed him the tall glass.
“Not if you take it outside.”
He had glanced at the unopened pack of cigarettes in his hand, then out at the bright lane, and decided against it.
“No Jessie?”
“Gone home to make a daisy outfit.”
He raised his eyebrows. He drank his iced tea in thirsty drafts, then asked for more.
Perhaps it was because of the brightness outside, but in the gloom, the shop seemed to have shrunk. Suzanna found herself acutely aware of her own movements, of the way she moved around the counter, of the shapes her fingers made as she poured the second glass of iced tea. She gazed at him surreptitiously, taking in the crumpled T-shirt, the faint hint of male perspiration. Set against the delicately fragrant soaps, and the vase of freesias by the till, it was almost aggressively masculine and disturbing. She wished, suddenly, that there were other customers after all. “Smoke in here if you like,” she said brightly. “I’ll prop the door open.”