LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

who had enjoyed every advantage, then it could happen to just about anyone. The Bainbridges had known Phillip from babyhood, had watched him grow into a fine young man, had celebrated with him when he was accepted into medical school, and a year later commiserated with his parents when he dropped out. That marked the turning point: one day he was normal and the next he was touting the North Vietnamese flag and supporting the NLF. He was a communist, he said, and a draft resister, and he had pledged to smash American imperialism. Coincidentally, both the Bainbridges and the Warbys harboured a deep concern over the usurping of good British values by crass Americanism and were, therefore, more than happy for American imperialism to be crushed, but they believed it should be done quietly, with decorum, not with the vulgar ravings of Phillip and his companions.

      The Warbys were beside themselves. The Bainbridges did their best to reassure them that Phillip was only going through a phase; in time, they said, he would succumb to the lure of good breeding and return to the family that loved him. And return he did, but neither cured nor alone. Nor did he return for love, that, he said, he had found elsewhere, and introduced them to his friend, a big handsome man dressed almost entirely in a pale pink that clashed dreadfully with the red Phillip had taken to wearing in support of the people’s struggle. Phillip said he was a special friend, a homosexual who was out of the closet.

      Now, around 1967 in the Warby-Bainbridge circle there were no homosexuals either in or out of the closet, it simply wasn’t done. Mrs Bainbridge wondered if Phillip had been experimenting with some of the mind-expanding drugs one read about; Mr Warby blamed his wife’s great-uncle Herbert for their trouble, certainly there was nothing on his side to account for Phillip. Mr Bainbridge spoke privately with Mr Warby, suggesting that what the boy needed was discipline, a spell in the army would, he believed, do the lad a world of good. Mr Warby couldn’t have agreed more, but by this time Phillip had been forced underground, having failed to register his name for the conscription ballot that was sending young men to Vietnam. For the next eighteen months, while Phillip was being shuffled from one safe house to another, the Warbys had time to recover from their son’s terrible defection. As for the Bainbridges they, too, had time, and while Phillip Warby was the only homosexual they knew, there were plenty of other young men who as 1967 advanced seemed to forget their privileged backgrounds and turn into rebellious riff-raff.

      Adrian Dadswell started to look a lot better.

      In September, after their nephew had been arrested outside the American embassy, the Bainbridges gave their consent; in October there was a magnificent ‘at home’ to celebrate the engagement. In March 1968 the wedding was held.

      And what a wedding! – although it was not without its difficulties. The church was the main problem. It was customary for wedding services to be held either in the groom’s old school chapel or that of his university college, but Adrian had neither. It was all so embarrassing, Mrs Bainbridge confessed to her sister, the mother of the nephew who had been arrested, a real dilemma. ‘Not at all,’ the sister said, ‘what about Elizabeth’s school chapel?’ So Elizabeth’s old school chapel it was, and in the years that followed the Bainbridges were to note with some satisfaction that Elizabeth’s wedding had started a trend, and the chapels at the various girls’ schools became a popular choice among some of the better-known families.

      The day of the wedding was perfect March weather, a day when the light rises rather than falls in a marvellous matt blue. Elizabeth saw the day and was pleased; she was searching for signs, omens to suggest she was doing the right thing. Not that she wasn’t happy and excited, she was, for this was her day, her own star-spangled day, but a mutinous spiral of doom, now no larger than a bacillus, was tailing her pleasure, wiggling and waggling and slowly gaining on it, and the future trembled in its wake.

      ‘All young brides are nervous,’ her mother said over breakfast, ‘and so they should be. It’s the biggest day of a girl’s life, the most important decision she’ll ever make.’

      Elizabeth sipped her coffee and said nothing. The decision to marry Adrian had, in fact, been quite simple, it was the decision to sleep with him that had been an agony. As for the wedding itself, once the announcement was made, little had been required of Elizabeth, she had merely drifted along in the grand wake of tradition and Mrs Bainbridge, meeting with caterer, dressmaker and florist as required. As for today, her own special day, all Elizabeth had to do was be accessible to the various hands that would do her nails, her hair, her face, dress her, guide her down the aisle and accompany her back up again. So when her mother leaned across the breakfast table to hold her daughter’s hand, the left hand with its emerald-cut diamond, Elizabeth gave it up without a thought; and when her mother said that Elizabeth had made a good choice in Adrian, Elizabeth promptly smiled – a blank smile thick enough to conceal the months of her parents’ opposition, their insistence that Adrian was a ‘nobody’, their pleas to ‘try Oliver again’, months soggy with blame and a bubble or more of hate.

      ‘You’ve made us so proud,’ Diana Bainbridge continued, ‘your father in particular. Both you and I know he’s not one for showing what he really feels, but he’s very proud of you and loves you very much.’

      Elizabeth heard it all across a great chasm of years; is this what she would be saying to her own daughter on her wedding day? ‘Darling, Adrian loves you, but he can’t tell you about it.’ Would these be her words? And if so, what is this fumbling atavism that renders fathers mute and mothers their apologists? She listened hard, trying to hear the words of love spoken to her unborn daughter, but could summon up only a picture of a kitchen much like this, with Adrian standing large and stern, and Elizabeth seated at a table her head in her hands, and the sound of voices sharp and urgent–

      ‘She hasn’t eaten properly, that’s the problem.’ Harold Bainbridge stood in the doorway of the kitchen while his wife knelt next to Elizabeth’s prostrate body loosening buttons, fanning the air, inspecting her daughter’s skin for injuries. ‘The girl’s got to eat to maintain her strength.’

      ‘Yes Hal, I know, but I can’t force-feed her.’

      Harold came a little closer. ‘Has this ever happened before?’

      Elizabeth’s throat felt dry and swollen, she asked for some water.

      ‘Well has it?’ Harold persisted, ‘have you ever fainted before?’

      ‘Of course.’ Make light of this, Elizabeth told herself. ‘Hasn’t everyone?’

      ‘I certainly haven’t.’

      ‘That’s because you’ve never been a young bride, Harold,’ said Mrs Bainbridge as she wiped her daughter’s brow.

      An hour later, fully recovered and fresh from a shower, Elizabeth sat in the living room while Tanya did her nails. Tanya, the volatile pixie from Hungary who knew women’s bodies better than their maker, was, according to Diana Bainbridge, crucial to the success of the wedding. Tanya, who shared the same opinion, had set aside the entire day so that Elizabeth and her attendants would look their best.

      ‘Now tell me about your bridesmaids.’ Tanya was rubbing cream into Elizabeth’s cuticles. ‘I know there’s your sister, Rosie.’

      ‘Yes, and Adrian’s sister Cathy. And my friend Susie Warby.’

      Tanya raised her eyebrows. ‘Surely not a sister of that Phillip Warby who’s doing all those disgusting things?’

      Elizabeth decided to ignore the question, Tanya the queen of gossip knew exactly who Susie Warby was.

      ‘And Lydia Branch, my matron of honour.’

      ‘Now there’s a lovely girl, really knows how to look after herself. Beautiful skin, perfect figure, truly feminine. I only wish we could cure her of her nail-biting.’

      Elizabeth glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, nearly half past ten. ‘They’ll be here soon.’

      And there they were: fat Cathy, fat but desperately dieting Rosie, beautiful blonde Lydia and tall slim Susie, all chattering excitedly, reassuring Mrs Bainbridge that everything would be perfect, joking with Elizabeth about her imminent loss of freedom, admiring recent photographs of

Скачать книгу