That Was Then Read online

  ‘I thought I heard something being discussed … I do hope that isn’t fouling up any arrangements … they tend not to think of anyone but themselves …’ I wittered feebly.

  ‘It is just as it should be,’ declared Sabine. ‘I had organised a little lunch, but so much better that she should be off with people of her own age.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked guardedly, preparing myself for the whiplash sting in the tail.

  ‘Of course! Your son is such a charmer,’ she added, touching my arm with what almost amounted to affection, ‘and now you can take Sophie’s place at the table.’

  I was too relieved to worry about Sabine’s quite open designation of myself as first reserve, or her blithe assumption that I would accept both this role and a place at her lunch table.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  When she’d moved on I caught up with Dennis and asked if he was staying for lunch.

  ‘They were kind enough to invite us,’ he said, ‘ but with poor Ronnie laid up I really want to get back, so I’ve made my excuses.’

  ‘Do give her my love,’ I said. ‘I hope she feels better soon.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m sure she will. I hope so,’ he added with an anxious smile, he was a nice man. ‘ It’s rotten for her, especially when she’s never ill.’

  I recalled his earlier remark about a ‘funny age’ and it didn’t seem to accord with this evidence of genuine concern.

  ‘I’ll call in on her,’ I said, ‘during the week.’

  ‘She’d appreciate that, I’m sure, poorly or not.’ He glanced around. ‘I’d better round up my team before they drink the bar dry.’

  ‘I think they’ve all gone off somewhere – the beach or something.’

  ‘Oh well, never mind. If you hear my name being blackened for not having given them a lift home perhaps you’d step in on my behalf.’

  The room was beginning to empty. Sabine had Charles McNally by the elbow and beckoned me over, which was the very last thing I wanted.

  ‘Eve, it turns out Dennis has to go and I am trying to persuade Charles to alter his plans to include lunch.’

  ‘What a good idea,’ I said hoping and probably failing to sound appropriately enthusiastic.

  ‘A great idea, Sabine, but out of the question,’ he said. ‘I’m already late, so sadly it has to be no.’

  ‘Won’t you keep Eve company?’ Sabine cast me a sparkling, woman-to-woman look which I did not return.

  ‘No I won’t,’ said Charles McNally. ‘Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t. G’bye Sabine, and thanks for including me, it was fun.’ He raised a hand to me, as one who had already been said good-bye to, and was gone, assertiveness on wheels. Martin accompanied him into the hall. Beyond the open front door I caught sight of a forest green Daimler with a dark-suited driver at the wheel.

  Sabine gave one of her expressive Gallic shrugs. ‘I’m sorry, Eve.’

  She could not know with how much heartfelt sincerity I replied: ‘Don’t be.’

  Chapter Eight

  When I left the Drages lunch party it was a quarter to four. The skies had clouded over and the offshore wind had turned the surface of the sea into a grey cheese-grater.

  I felt for once at a loose end, not content to return to Cliff Mansions on my own (for I knew Ben wouldn’t be back) and put my feet up with the Sunday papers. I’d only had two units – and possibly a top-up, but random breath-testing was unheard-of in the Littelsea area – so I put The Best of Dolly on the tape deck and drove inland. I headed in the general direction of Hawley End, but that meant nothing, because short of taking the London or coast roads, that was the only way to go. The fact that Helen Robinson would almost certainly be languishing in her cottage without the company of either husband or lover had, of course, nothing to do with it.

  On the way I passed the entrance to Whitegates and was reminded of old Mrs Rymer. I wondered if she had any visitors this Sunday afternoon. It must have been the two and a half units, because I made a spur of the moment decision and turned up the drive.

  The house was a handsome Georgian pile, with some not too offensive practical additions – fire-escapes, a back kitchen extension, a satellite dish and so on. The solid outer wooden front doors were open, but there was a round brass bell below a sign advising visitors to Ring and Enter. The hall was like a dentist’s waiting room with a table on which was a pot full of ferns and a slew of magazines, mostly The Lady and the organ of the Countrydwellers’Association. A great fluffy tortoiseshell cat was dozing in a puddle of sunshine on the Turkish rug, unimpressed by my arrival.

  A girl in a green uniform appeared. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know – I wondered if I might visit Mrs Rymer?’

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ said the girl, so that I experienced a small glow of virtue. ‘Hang on a moment, I’ll be right with you.’

  She crossed the hall and opened a door into what appeared to be an office, currently empty. She returned carrying a large book which she laid on the table.

  ‘Now then, Mrs Rymer …’ she ran her forefinger down a page. ‘Oh, what a pity, she’s out for the day.’

  ‘Never mind. It was a long shot anyway, I was passing so I called in.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s a shame,’ said the girl. ‘She doesn’t get all that many visitors, but she’s gone out to lunch with her son. Shall I tell her who called?’

  ‘Well the only thing is, she won’t have any idea who I am. I work for the auctioneers who are dealing with some of her things, and I met her daughter-in-law recently. I thought I might just introduce myself and, you know, assure her that her property is receiving our best attention.’

  ‘Of course, what a nice idea, and your name is?’

  ‘Mrs Piercy, Eve Piercy. And my company’s called Bouvier’s.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of them, they’ve got a very good reputation.’ She wrote down Bouviers alongside my name in the big book before closing it.

  ‘We like to think so.’

  ‘Do call in again, won’t you?’

  I promised I would, and left. As I drove back down towards the road I felt pleased that Mrs Rymer had gone out to lunch with her family.

  When I got to Helen’s house, John Kerridge was just coming out of the gate, aiming an electronic key like a six-shooter at his silver Mercedes. Which all went to show how wrong you could be. I wondered what excuse he had offered to his wife and children for skipping the Sunday roast and visiting Helen in her rural slum. Or (a disloyal thought but a recurring one), why he would want to. I was the first to accord my friend respect – as a clever, interesting woman – but it was terribly hard to cast her in the role of the femme fatale, and her present circumstances offered little in the way of creature comforts. Kerridge was not, so far as I could see, a soda bread and cider man. I was forced to the conclusion that absolute availability had a lot going for it.

  I didn’t wish to exchange pleasantries with him, so I drove straight past, intending to gain some time by turning round at the crossroads. But he glanced up and our eyes met fleetingly. Something passed between us in that split second, a flash of acknowledgement and recognition which left my cheeks burning with embarrassment. Though why I should have been embarrassed was a mystery.

  I turned the car, paused, composed myself and drove back. To my intense relief the Merc had gone.

  Helen answered the door in her brown chenille dressing gown, a garment of many years’ service for which the tie had long since been lost and replaced by a red-and-grey striped cord, presumably from one of Clive’s. She didn’t appear to have anything on underneath and her long, bony feet were bare.

  ‘Hello,’ she said ‘did you bump into John?’

  ‘Nearly. I avoided it.’

  ‘You sound awfully stern,’ she said in her uninterested way, flapping ahead of me into the kitchen. ‘Are you telling me off?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I replied, realising at once that I had been.

  ‘Not that
it makes the slightest difference …’ She moved the clutter about vaguely and produced a crumpled packet of Camels, dispelling any notion I might have had of being offered refreshment. My last visit was obviously not to be seen as a precedent.

  ‘Take a pew.’

  She sat down on one of the bentwood chairs and crossed her legs, revealing momentarily a whisp of auburn pubic hair – she must have been Titian-haired in her youth. She had good legs, with long, lean thighs, a high calf muscle (quite undeserved since she never took any exercise) and shapely ankles.

  ‘Cupboard’s bare,’ she remarked. ‘John ate the last of the cheese.’

  For this, I thought, he gave up the perfect executive roast and all the trimmings …? ‘I could do Marmite toast,’ she offered. ‘And vodka, I’ve got a bottle of Smirnoff.’

  The vodka sounded tempting, but I realised it would be most unwise to add any more units to those already totted up, and since Helen was clearly going to have one I needed something to keep me occupied.

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘thanks, I’ll have some toast.’

  She took a couple of slices from the packet in the bread bin and examined them before slamming them into the toaster. I told myself that whatever lifeforms they harboured would be killed by the heat.

  ‘You’re looking very smart,’ she said, lighting her cigarette with a match.

  ‘I’ve been to a party.’

  ‘God. Parties … I’ve forgotten what they are.’

  I saw an opening. ‘You’ve cut yourself off, that’s the trouble.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘If I had a party, would you come?’ It was the two and a half units speaking, I knew that a few hours from now the very last thing I’d want was a party in my nice, orderly flat.

  Helen coughed, long and wheezily. When she’d recovered, she said: ‘ Could I bring John?’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘You mean no.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m not planning a party so it’s academic.’

  ‘An academic party,’ she mused, ‘that’s me. An ageing academic party.’

  She wasn’t inviting any emollient remarks so I didn’t venture any. Tendrils of smoke began to rise from the toaster to join those coming from her cigarette, and a pungent smell filled the air.

  ‘Damn thing,’ she said, switching the machine off at the plug and turning it upside down, tweaking the smouldering toast out amid a hail of carbonised crumbs. ‘I’m perfectly happy using the grill but John insisted on giving me one of these, so I feel obliged …’ She put the slices on a plate in front of me and provided me with a knife, a tub of sunflower spread and a jar of Marmite.

  ‘Bit overdone,’ she conceded, ‘ but charcoal prevents flatulence.’

  This observation was matter of fact. I started on the toast as best I could, gumming the blackened shrapnel together with spread. Helen poured herself a vodka and gazed at me vacantly through her cigarette smoke.

  ‘How’s Ben?’ she asked, out of the blue. It was so unusual for her to take any particular interest in someone else’s life, especially their children, that I was quite taken aback.

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Your son?’ She furrowed her brow. ‘He is called Ben, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. He’s fine, thanks.’

  ‘What’s he doing with himself?’

  ‘Earning a few quid at HMV.’

  ‘Going out with girls?’ This phrase, usually associated with a teenager’s first tentative encounters with the opposite sex, seemed scarcely apposite when applied to Ben’s social life, but then Helen lived in a parallel universe.

  ‘All the time,’ I replied.

  ‘Good for him. Is he still rather handsome?’

  ‘I think so, but then I would say that wouldn’t I?’

  ‘No, he was handsome when I last saw him, anyone would have said so.’

  I glowed maternally, but she didn’t take the subject any further. She didn’t know my other friends – she and Clive had encountered them in the old days, but she never remembered names or faces – so it was pointless to enlarge on the Sophie business.

  I munched as much as I could and then dusted my palms together. ‘Thanks, I needed something to soak up the alcohol.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘you can’t beat good old toast. What about you?’ she asked. ‘Are you getting on all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m enjoying my life. I’m very happy and content. Surprisingly so.’

  ‘Without Ian.’

  ‘I think that’s all turned out for the best.’

  ‘Aren’t you lucky …’ murmured Helen, leaning over to tap ash into my toast crumbs. ‘Ian feels the same, does he?’

  ‘As far as I can tell.’ She was getting a bit too close for comfort, and I tried to steer her away. ‘We don’t see that much of each other any more.’

  ‘Has he got someone else?’

  I wondered what on earth had brought on this unwelcome surge of interest. Her manner was, as usual, laconic to a degree, but this was still an uncomfortably straight question.

  Ashamed of my duplicity, I said: ‘ Not that I know of.’

  ‘But he will have, won’t he? Bound to,’ she drawled vaguely, ‘ I resist the idea of it being different for men, but I suspect it’s true.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My appalling mother used to say that women put up with the sex to get the love, and men offer love to get the sex.’

  I laughed, relieved to have got things back into a more general arena. ‘Sounds about right. Is that what you think about you and – John?’ I still found it difficult to confer upon her lover the acceptance implied by the use of his Christian name.

  She coughed at some length – while fishing out the last Camel – before replying: ‘ John doesn’t love me. I mean look at me—’ she spread her big hands at shoulder level. ‘I’m not exactly a siren. But I do it for him, he says.’

  ‘Obviously,’ I agreed.

  ‘And of course I adore him which makes the sex astonishing.…’

  I remembered what she’d said to me before about not being herself. ‘But you love Clive,’ I reminded her.

  ‘No I don’t.’ She shook her head slowly, gazing at the ceiling. ‘Not like this.’

  On the way back I drove past the Chatsworths’ house, Shandford, a large Edwardian villa in the professional hinterland of Littelsea. I slowed down, in the hope of seeing Ronnie and offering the verbal equivalent of a bunch of seedless grapes. There was no sign of her, but the house presented a quiet, relaxed aspect, with windows and even the front door standing open and one of the boys – I couldn’t see which – lying under a campervan in the driveway. I experienced another Sunday-afternoonish pang for the more ample life of the long and still happily married. But when Dennis appeared in the front doorway I at once moved on, embarrassed by my behaviour. It was a curious fact that had I been with Ian we wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment. On the contrary, Dennis’s appearance would have been our cue to get out of the car and go over. In my single state I feared that would seem, on a Sunday afternoon, too bustling and intrusive: too needy.

  As I drove down the road I hoped Dennis hadn’t seen me.

  Ben came in at eight and went straight into the kitchen where I heard cupboards and the fridge opening and shutting and water being run into a saucepan.

  ‘Good time?’ I called from where I was sitting on the balcony.

  ‘Sure,’ he replied as though I’d made a suggestion – that generation seemed to have a whole range of inflexions designed to confuse the issue. ‘I’ll be through in a moment.’

  ‘Putting on some pasta,’ he explained. He came and leaned on the balcony rail, his back to the view, smoking. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Sabine had organised a wonderful lunch, I enjoyed myself. And then I went out to see Helen Robinson.’

  ‘Ah, the Hellcat.’ He hadn’t a clue who I meant.

  ‘So what did you make of Sophie?’ I asked. I stood no chance of an unsolicited op
inion on this subject, so there was nothing for it but a direct question.

  ‘Yeah, she’s OK,’ he said, as though surprised to hear himself saying it. ‘ Not what I expected.’

  Praise indeed. Now it was time for the more oblique approach. ‘She must feel rather isolated up there with Martin and Sabine, working on the farm all week and—’

  ‘I’m going to see her again, don’t worry.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Come on, Mum, don’t give me the wide-eyed number. She’s nice – nice eyes, nice tits, nice voice, functioning brain. I wouldn’t push her out.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to imply anything.’

  ‘No, no, no – as if.’

  ‘Oh all right,’ I admitted. He was teasing me and it was disarming to be teased. ‘I won’t pretend I didn’t notice how different she was from Pearl.’

  ‘Now don’t you go laying the harsh word on Pearl. She’s no rocket scientist, but with that body she doesn’t need to be.’

  In this age of political correctness it was extraordinary how little the young cared about it. ‘ You can bring Pearl, she’s a darn nice girl,’ I murmured, but the allusion was lost on him.

  ‘How’s Sophie getting on with Sabine?’ I asked. ‘ Did she say?’

  ‘She mentioned that it was a bit sticky to begin with, but improving.’

  ‘I wonder if she realises how nervous Sabine was about the whole thing.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Ben pulled a face as he shied his fag end on to the promenade. ‘Sabine? Nervous? That’ll be the day.’

  ‘No, she was,’ I pressed on, feeling that I was performing a useful social service. ‘Still is, a little. After all it’s unknown territory for her, having a girl in the house, and the fact that it’s Martin’s daughter makes the whole thing still more complicated, because she’s not sure what her role is or how she should play it.’

  ‘She seems to be doing fine. As a matter of fact Sophie quite likes her.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  ‘I don’t see what either of them have got to worry about,’ he added. ‘They’re both pretty cool in their separate ways.’ A buzzer sounded from the kitchen. ‘There’s my twists, do you want some?’