At some point, with all the money she didn’t have, she would have to find Finetta a governess; some organised woman who’d teach her French and piano, some German too, although unremarkably it had gone out of fashion. She’d have to do something with her anyway, at least until she was old enough to be sent on her own tour of Italian churches. Except who would go with her? There was no aunt to get her skirts caught in a gig. There was only Joan who’d teach her to smoke and play blackjack, if she taught her anything more at all. Joan – who’d as likely not want her either.

At least Finetta was resourceful and contained. Ian threw a presence about him as if Joan were behind his eyes, seeing into the room, the living, breathing mass of her; the gin and Turkish smokes, the careless abandon that made Enid mad. There was always something different about him when he came home: a missing coat or a new toy, his hair cut or a sudden refusal to eat tongue. Crowther told her not to get lost in detail.

Three days to wait until he came back. She could go to see Fagus again. She always meant to. Each time a thousand letters from Joan resulted in dates they could both tolerate, she thought I shall go to Castlemere. It will pass the time admirably. She had such plans. But then the trains failed, or her nerves failed. It was too cold, too icy, a terrible winter storm, and worries she’d never get home again. The summer holidays had come and she didn’t want to bump into Joan. Christmas had come, and she’d reassured herself that Douglas always went at Christmas. Bills came, and she thought I can’t afford the train fare. Her little boy was being shut out of her heart, and she thought I mustn’t disturb him with my worries. He has his nice housemaid who puts him to bed and sings with him at lights out.

He’d brought her back from Norfolk. His birthday had jogged her senses into being, for one brief summer of watching other mothers play, and thinking she could do it. But her one brief visit had scared her. He wasn’t a child swinging his legs on a bench anymore or a huddled mass beneath the covers of his bed. He was the living breathing embodiment of everything she’d done wrong. He was the child who had made her heart sing, the handshake with the devil that had cracked her apart and then him. Fagus. Her boy. She couldn’t stand it.

In the comfort of her armchair, the tea things left on the table for Peel, Enid told herself for the hundredth time that disturbing him was selfish, that he was better cocooned in the known black world of Castlemere, that she would only make him cry.

Joan, 1929

32

Joan, 1929