Riley, page 19
Oh dear Lord! Betty’s hand was tight across her mouth now and she turned swiftly away and went back into the scullery. She had never before felt afraid of her mother, but she did now. She had said she would dance on their graves, and she meant it, meant every word she said. Well, there was one thing sure, she herself couldn’t stand this life. As soon as possible she would get out. Oh yes, she would get out, she’d go and join her dad.
PART TWO
One
She stood inside the gate. It was all of four and a half feet high, but she hadn’t leant on it, although she had been standing there for more than an hour. Her body was still erect and tense, her gaze directed over the bucolic scene ahead, nevertheless her troubled mind was taking her back down the years. Years filled with mental torment, hate and tragedy, but all the time supported by a devastating love. Love, love that had always held pain through fear of losing it but had finally become a torment.
Nyrene Riley was now a woman nearing fifty who looked her age, and she was well aware of it. Yet on the day of their arrival here, when Peter and she had stood at this very spot and gazed over this same scene towards the river, she had imagined she was a young girl again, a feeling which had persisted for weeks, months, yes, even for the first three years. There had been a feeling of youth and gaiety within her.
When Peter had been forced to leave her for his tours she had filled her days with looking after her beloved child, helped by Mrs Atkins and supported by their unique gardener-cum-handyman, Hamish McIntyre, who came from Peterculter, just a short distance away towards Banchory.
With Ivy and Ken she would take a weekly trip into Aberdeen or Banchory to do the shopping. Aberdeen in particular was full of interest, and now and again they would go to a play. Then there were evenings when Claire and Mick Brown, near neighbours of Ivy’s, would pop in, as would an amusing middle-aged bachelor, Angus Clarke.
Perhaps it was after the child’s third birthday that the change began, although it did not affect their love.
At that time she wasn’t taking into account the years to come; and now her tortured body and mind were taking her back down them.
Two
She had met him at Peterculter station and managed to restrain herself from running to him when she saw him jumping down from the carriage. But he ran towards her, only to pass her, shouting, ‘I’ve got a box in the guard’s van.’
A minute later, standing by his tightly packed holdall, his usual travelling case and a wooden box, she said, ‘What on earth’s all this?’
‘Mind your own business, woman. Here, let me hold you.’
‘No, no! Look, there’s the lady from the—’
‘Damn the lady from the—!’
He kissed her, then said, ‘Do you think you can lug my holdall?’
When she picked it up, she said, ‘Just what have you in it, bricks?’
He did not answer, but, picking up the suitcase, he pointed to the wooden box, saying, ‘I’ll get someone to come and fetch this. Is the car in the yard?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Ten minutes later they were on the main road when he gave a great sigh, leant his head back, thrust his feet out as far as they would go and exclaimed in a high falsetto voice, ‘Ain’t life wonderful!’ She burst out laughing, then said, ‘What’s happened to make it so wonderful?’
‘Don’t be stupid, woman’—he had assumed the voice of Fred Beardsley now—‘I’m home, aren’t I? And you’re but inches from me. What more explanation do you want?’
‘Oh, Peter!’
Her tone brought him upright and, leaning towards her, he kissed her neck, creating danger for an oncoming car. ‘Don’t be…don’t be a fool! See what happened? I bet that fellow’s cursing me.’
‘He wouldn’t dare.’ He lay back again and looked out of the window as he now said quietly, ‘I love this countryside. And to think I can wallow in it for the next, oh, ten weeks, more if I want to.’
‘Really?’
The car swerved again.
‘Yes, Mrs Riley, really.’
‘What about the pantomime?’
‘I turned it down.’
‘You didn’t! You love pantomime.’
‘Yes, I know, but if I’d taken it I wouldn’t have seen much of a woman that I’ve been after for some time.’
‘Oh! Peter…Peter, don’t,’ and when he went to move towards her again, she said, ‘No, don’t move! I’m going to put on speed and get home. No more antics, or we’ll end up in the ditch.’
As they turned off the main road onto a root-lined narrow way, bordered by woodland, he sat up straight, misquoting, ‘“And does the house now stand above the field above the Dee, and will we have tea at three?”’
After they had passed a copse of Scotch firs bordering the path to the left, to the right was a high green hedge that was checked abruptly by a huge wooden-framed gateway leading to a drive onto which Nyrene now slowly turned the car, saying on a laugh, ‘Poor Rupert Brooke. He didn’t deserve that.’
The drive was broad but short, only about a hundred feet long before it opened into a large paved square, bordered on one side by the end of the house. Opposite, a row of outbuildings containing three stables, a tack room, and a wood store, and at the far side was what looked like a large barn, running from the end of the outbuildings to where it was cut off from the house by an archway leading into a kitchen garden beyond.
The stone and partly timbered building was now used as a garage, and as the car approached it there emerged from the wide open doors a tall thin man wearing a red woolly hat that hosted a big pompom on its crown. The skin of his long face was not unlike a paler shade of the hat for it was what could be termed ruddy.
Almost before the car had come to a stop he pulled open the door and, looking at Peter, he said, ‘Well, ye’ve made it again I see.’
‘Yes, Mac, I’ve made it again, and not before time.’
‘No, as you say, not afore time. Four weeks is long enough to be gone.’
Riley, now standing in the yard, stretched his arms whilst saying, ‘Oh, this air, this air! Everything all right, Mac?’
‘Now, Mr Riley, sir, would ye be expecting it to be different? Your good woman is fine, there she is fine as ever; your linty is as spring-heeled as ever; he’s along with his Aunt Ivy at this minute; and as for Mrs Tommy Atkins…well, would ye expect her to change?’
As Riley lifted a case from the car boot he laughed as he said, ‘She’ll give you “Mrs Tommy Atkins” one of these days when she hears you.’
‘But then, she does na’ hear me. She is Mrs Atkins to me in public as I am Mr McIntyre to her in the same, but as ye already ken weel, I said it afore, she’s the most fear-filled creature that I would expect to find in a long day’s walk through the gullies.’
‘Well, who’s to blame for that?’ put in Nyrene, with a laugh. ‘You will tell your tales of goblins and woodfolk; it’s a wonder that Charles, too, isn’t scared to death by them, the stories you keep telling him.’
‘Now there’s a funny thing—’ But as Mac went to pick up the wooden box from the boot, the weight of it diverted his thinking and he said, ‘My! My! There’s some scrap iron ye’ve got in here by the weight of it. Where do ye want it put?’
‘In the corner of the barn; and don’t let the linty near it, it’s a real model train with all the accessories for his Christmas stocking.’
‘My! My! ’Tis good, that is. That’ll delight him.’ Mac lifted the box and took it into the barn.
After he had returned, he said to Riley, who had already lifted the cases from the boot, ‘Give them to me here,’ and then returning to his earlier conversation, he said to Nyrene, ‘As I was about to ask ye, have ye ever seen the linty go pale with me stories? Dances around me, he does, as if he had joined the woodfolk hissel. By the way, I’ve just come out’—he bobbed his head towards the house—‘I’ve made up the fire. It’s flaming nicely now. That woman! She’d let it go out in front of her. But she had the good sense to leave the coffee table all set quite near it. It looked comfortable. Yes, it looked comfortable.’
Both Nyrene and Riley laughed as they watched him carrying the cases towards the kitchen, then, their arms about each other, they walked round the side of the house and approached the main door.
As he always did, Riley stood back from the door and gazed up at the façade of the outsize cottage that had thrilled him the first time he had seen it. Constructed of stone, topped by timber, it had hand-chiselled beams of oak linking with each other, up to the eaves, which overshadowed the deep-set windows.
The roof had a distinction of its own, being covered with huge stone tiles with the ridge leading to two ornamental chimneys, one at each end of the long house.
They were crossing the threshold when he pulled her to him and said, ‘You know something? I think I love this house better than I do you.’
‘Yes, I know you do, that’s why you married me.’
When she was pulled against him she gasped, and when his lips pressed hard on hers she returned his kiss for a moment; then pushing him away, she said, ‘Let’s get in.’
She ran from him, down the long room and through a door and into the kitchen, leaving him standing and pulling off his scarf and overcoat. As had been his experience in the yard, it was as if all this were new to him.
The room—it was more than a hall, for it was furnished as a sitting room and dining room—was all of fifty feet long and twenty-five feet wide and, together with the adjoining kitchen which at one time had also served as the byres, was vaulted. The great beams supporting the roof were held in place by equally impressive timbers. To his left a shallow flight of oak stairs led to a narrow gallery from which led a number of doors. The stairway was supported by four oak posts, allowing usable open space.
He walked slowly across the room towards the wood fire blazing in the low basket set on a stone hearth, and bordered by two large iron dogs, against which were stacked a number of equally large fire-irons, a poker, a toasting fork, and a pair of tongs used for arranging the hot logs. The inglenooks beside each iron dog were too near the fire for comfort.
The stone mantelpiece held only one pair of brass candlesticks, between which was set an array of pewter mugs. On the stone wall, at each side of the fireplace, a large painting was hanging; one depicting eventide with a beautiful peasant girl standing, a sheaf of corn across her arm; the other a painting of richer hue depicting a French lady at court, bare-bosomed and bedecked with lace so real one could imagine it could be picked up from the canvas. The authenticity of its being a Boucher had been debated. Were it so, it would nowadays be worth a fortune.
The whole room was stone paved, glimpsed only in small areas, for three large and brilliantly hued Chinese washed carpets covered most of the room. In front of the fireplace was a long white rug, and beyond it was a deep-seated couch, with matching armchairs at each side. Various pieces of antique furniture were scattered about the room.
The suite was upholstered in a soft shade of blue velvet which matched the curtains at the two long windows each side of the front door. There was a third window at the very far end of the room towards which he was now looking, for set in front of it was the long trestle dining table with its high, hide-backed chairs.
There were no pictures on the walls at this end, the light from the window reflecting from the highly polished furniture giving enough variation of tone.
Riley’s face had taken on a serious expression as he continued to stare down the room. When he had first come into this house, he could remember standing as he was now, amazed by the uniqueness and beauty of it. The room looked exactly the same, nothing had changed, and he recalled his thought: God, I’m lucky. The words had been said almost in the form of a prayer, and his mind still voiced them. He had her, that wonderful, wonderful woman, and she had this house. He had this house now, too, and he was Mr Riley, Mr Riley, sir. It was Hamish McIntyre who had first addressed him like that and without blinking an eyelid at his youthful appearance. He liked Hamish, he was a good man. He had a deep sense of humour and he would give the impression that he cared for neither God nor man, yet Sunday found him at his church or, as he said, the kirk. And if the travelling parson happened to be preaching on a particular Sunday and came out with jokes, surprising for a parson, Hamish would seek him out in order to relate them to him. There would be nothing nasty nor even risqué in these jokes, but as he was wont to say, few women understood what made a man laugh.
Yes, he liked Hamish, and he loved this house, and he adored her. The more he saw of her the more fiercely did his love grow; but such love had a hungry side. He missed her so much when he was on tour. Time and again he would feel like giving up the whole business, dashing home to her and saying, ‘I’m going to go local, at least team up with an Edinburgh company, so I can get home at least for one day a week,’ only, when this feeling was at its height, to tell himself to stop acting like some youth who had just fallen in love. He had a wife and child to support. Oh yes, she had plenty of money of her own, but he wouldn’t touch a penny of that. Oh no! That was the only thing that they had disagreed on, the use of money, her money. She could buy what she liked with it, but he would provide for their living. She had once come back at him and reminded him there were such things as resting periods that hit the best of actors, and he had said he was well aware of that and would take odd jobs at such times.
Taking this stand had mentally helped to pile the years on him. He could consider himself a man now. But hadn’t he always felt a man?
‘What’s the matter, dear?’
He turned and blinked and said, ‘The matter? Nothing. What could be the matter? I’m home…I’m home…I’m home.’ Again he was holding her; but now she pressed back gently within his arms, saying, ‘You look worried.’
‘Worried? What have I got to be worried about?’
He now let go of her, turned and dropped onto the couch, then pulled her onto his knee, saying, ‘Nyrene…Nyrene. What am I going to do about you?’
‘The same as you always do about me, give me my own way: lie to me from the minute you come into this house until it’s time to go.’
He stared at her for a moment, then put out a hand and softly stroked her cheek, saying, ‘I adore you and I need you. Oh, how I need you! I need you so much at times that I wish, sincerely wish I’d never clapped eyes on you. I do…I do. At one time I used to despise all those yarpers on the television and the radio always on about love. I used to switch them off in disgust; yet here I am so soaked up with it that at times it becomes unbearable. I look at the girls in the cast. They don’t walk properly, they don’t hold themselves right, they don’t talk right. They’ve got no idea that you can put more into a pause than you can into a sentence, they’re gauche.’
There was no smile on her face now as she said, ‘They’re only gauche, dear, because they’re young, and I only walk straight, talk correctly and know my pauses because I’m a middle-aged woman.’
He laughed now as he kissed her, then said, ‘Well, how would this middle-aged woman like to come up to bed right now, this very minute? I must find out if she’s started to spread yet.’
‘Certainly not! I want a cup of tea and they’ll be in at any moment, and I shouldn’t wonder but Ken will bring them. Let me go.’
Frustration. Frustration. As he let her go he nodded up to her, saying, ‘I’ll have a headache tonight.’
‘Do, Mr Riley. Oh, do have a headache. That’ll suit me fine.’
In the kitchen Nyrene put the kettle on the Aga plate, then put the tea in the pot and stood waiting. It would take only a minute for it to boil. It was now three o’clock. It would be another five hours before they could go upstairs, at least to bed, and she didn’t know how her body could wait that long. He had said he adored her. What name could be put to the feeling she had for him? Consumed would be a better word. His absences were a torture to her, and she could give him no hint of her pain because although she might want him with her, she knew that acting was his life and that he’d be lost without it. She had imagined her feelings would ease over the years, fall into a pattern, perhaps even become motherly; but no, if anything they had become fiercer, stronger; and she now found herself constantly asking what would happen if anyone were to come between them, and it could happen. Those gauche girls he talked about were all attractive. If they had nothing else they had youth, and that could pay off any day against age.
Then again, what if he were killed in a train crash or a motor crash or whilst crossing a road. Well, she could suffer that. Yes she could suffer that, but not another woman. She hoped it would happen like that, rather than he would live to see her as she really was, for then he would turn kind, no longer loving. Oh, what was the matter with her? Here he was, and she was going to have him for weeks; and she must tell him what Fred had said was happening to the Little Palace. Now there was a solution, that is, if it ever got off the drawing board. Oh yes, that could be the solution. Don’t be silly! What did it matter? She was brought from her dismal thinking by the sound of a commotion in the yard. Presently the door was flung open and there bounced into the room a small, startlingly fair and beautiful-looking boy and now he almost overbalanced Nyrene as he flung himself against her, crying, ‘Mama! Mama! Bruce came. Bruce.’
‘Careful. Careful. Bruce came?’ Nyrene was looking at Mrs Atkins who was divesting herself of her coat and balaclava hat, and that lady said, ‘Mr Wakefield will come traipsing across for him tomorrow,’ only for her voice to be cut off by Hamish McIntyre saying, ‘Nonsense, woman! That dog knows the road better than his master any day in the week. He’ll be snuffling at the door come dawn. Mr Wakefield just likes an excuse to visit.’ Then after a pause, he went on, ‘I’ll be away, ma’am. I’ll be away. No need to wish ye a good night; ye’ve got your man back, and the linty there. By, he’d tire a troop of horses, he would that! Goodnight to ye, Goodnight.’
