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Chapter One

Nor take her tea without a stratagem.
EDWARD YOUNG: Love of Fame

Carmel Lacy is the silliest woman I know, whichis saying a good deal. The only reason that I washaving tea with her in Harrods on that wet Thursdayafternoon was that when she rang me up shehad been so insistent that it had been impossibleto get out of; and besides, I was so depressed anywaythat even tea with Carmel Lacy was preferableto sitting alone at home in a room that stillseemed to be echoing with that last quarrel withLewis. That I had been entirely in the right, andthat Lewis had been insufferably, immovably, furiouslyin the wrong was no particular satisfaction,since he was now in Stockholm, and I wasstill here in London, when by rights we shouldhave been lying on a beach together in the Italiansunshine, enjoying the first summer holiday wehad been able to plan together since our honey-moon two years ago. The fact that it had rainedalmost without ceasing ever since he had gonehadn't done anything to mitigate his offence; andwhen, on looking up "Other People's Weather" inthe Guardian each morning, I found Stockholmenjoying a permanent state of sunshine, and temperaturessomewhere in the seventies, I was easilyable to ignore the reports of a wet, thunderyAugust in southern Italy and concentrate steadilyon Lewis's sins and my own grievances.

"What are you scowling about?" asked CarmelLacy.

"Was I? I'm sorry. I suppose I'm just depressedwith the weather and everything. I certainlydidn't mean to glower at you! Do go on. Did youdecide to buy it in the end?"

"I haven't made up my mind. It's always soterribly difficult to decide ... " Her voice trailedaway uncertainly as she contemplated the plateof cakes, her hand poised between a meringueand an éclair. "But you know what they're likenowadays, they won't keep things for you. If Iwait much longer they'll simply sell it, and whenthat happens, one realizes one's really wanted itlike mad all along."

And if you wait much longer, I thought, as sheselected the éclair, it won't fit you any more. But Ididn't think it unkindly; plumpness suits CarmelLacy, who is one of those blonde, pretty womenwhose looks depend on the fair, soft coloringwhich seems to go on indestructibly into middle age, and to find a whole new range of charmwhen the fair hair turns white.

Carmel -- whose hair was still a rather determinedshade of gold -- had been my mother'scontemporary at school. Her kind of prettinesshad been fashionable then, and her goodtemperedsoftness had made her popular; hernickname, according to my mother, had beenCaramel, which seemed appropriate. She had notbeen a close friend of Mother's at school, but thetwo girls were thrown together in the holidays bythe nearness of their families and by professionalconnections between them. Carmel's father hadowned and trained race horses, while my grandfather,who was a veterinary surgeon, had been,so to speak, surgeon in attendance. Soon after thegirls left school their ways parted: my mothermarried her father's young partner and stayed inCheshire; but Carmel left home for London whereshe married "successfully"; that is, she acquired awealthy London banker whose dark, florid goodlooks told you exactly the kind of man he wouldbe in his forties, safely ensconced in the Jaguarbelt with three carefully spaced children away atcarefully chosen schools. But the marriage hadnot worked out. Carmel, to all appearances thekind of soft maternal creature whom you wouldhave sworn would make the ideal wife andmother, combined with this a possessiveness soclinging that it had threatened to drown her familylike warm treacle. The eldest girl had gone first, off into the blue with a casually defiant announcementthat she had got a job in Canada. Thesecond daughter had torn herself loose at nineteenand followed her Air Force husband to Maltawithout a backward look. The husband had gonenext, leaving a positive embarrassment of richesin the way of evidence for the divorce. Which leftthe youngest child, Timothy, whom I vaguely rememberedmeeting around his grandfather's stablesduring school holidays; a slight, darting,quicksilver boy with a habit of sulky silences,readily forgivable in any child exposed to the fullblast of his mother's devotion.

She was moaning comfortably over him now,having disposed (as far as I had been able to followher) of her dressmaker, her doctor, her currentescort, her father, my mother, two morecream cakes and, for some reason which I cannotnow remember, the Postmaster General ...

" ... And as a matter of fact I don't know whatto do. He's being so difficult. He knows just howto get on my nerves. Dr. Schwapp was sayingonly yesterday -- "

"Timmy's being difficult?"

"Well, of course. Not that his father wasn't justthe same, in fact his father started the wholething. You'd really think he'd have the decency tokeep out of Timmy's life now, wouldn't you, afterwhat he did?"

"Is he coming back into Timmy's life?"

"My dear, that's the whole point. It's all just come out, and that's why I'm so upset. He's beenwriting to Timmy, quite regularly, imagine, andnow apparently he wants him to go and see him."

I said, feeling my way: "He's abroad, isn't he,your -- Tim's father?"

"Graham? Yes, he's living in Vienna. We don'twrite," said Carmel with what was, for her, remarkablebrevity.

"And has he seen anything of Timothy sincethe divorce?" I added awkwardly: "I didn't knowwhat the arrangements were at the time, AuntCarmel."

She said with an irritation momentarily moregenuine than any feeling she had shown up tonow: "For goodness' sake don't call me that, itmakes me feel a hundred!

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Excerpted from Airs above the Ground by Mary Stewart
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