That Was Then Read online

  I declined. As I sat there thinking fond thoughts about possible youthful romance (something one could only do or even admit to in the privacy of one’s own home) the phone rang.

  ‘It’s Sabine.’

  ‘Hello! That was such a lovely—’

  ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes – no, kind of.’

  ‘I’ll call tomorrow.’

  ‘Sabine—’ But she’d rung off.

  Ben came in, carrying a Pyrex dish heaped with pasta twists, liberally covered with tomato ketchup and grated cheddar cheese.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Oh, it was just Sabine, but she got called away.’

  ‘As you do,’ said Ben. ‘ Mind if I watch Cracker?’

  It was quiet at Bouvier’s during August, with no big sales due to take place until the beginning of the following month. Our days were taken up with valuation and assessment visits (not as many as usual because people were on holiday), stock-taking, and establishing reserves on those items scheduled for sale in September. Emma and I spent the best part of a couple of days poring over old Mrs Rymer’s possessions.

  ‘She should realise a tidy sum on these things,’ remarked Emma respectfully, running her fingers over a walnut and marquetry bureau. ‘But how sad she’s got to part with it all.’

  ‘I think she took quite a bit into Whitegates with her,’ I said. ‘And selling the rest will help her to stay there.’

  ‘This is so pretty.’ Emma lowered the flap of the bureau, and the supports glided out of their cavities with silken smoothness. ‘Beautifully crafted.’

  She began opening the compartments, pulling the tiny handles of doll-size cupboards and drawers between her finger and thumb. ‘Isn’t it darling? Oh look, there’s always something.…’

  Her questing fingers had found a key, one of those old-fashioned black ones with a broad oval handle.

  ‘What fun,’ said Emma, ‘like a children’s story.’

  ‘Is it for the lid of this?’

  She shook her head. ‘Too big, but I’ll try it – nope, too big. I think we’d better send it to her.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I was going to drop in on her, I’ll take it.’

  I think if it had been any of the other things we commonly found in drawers – a pen, say, Or coins, or even a bunch of common or garden Yale keys – it wouldn’t have exercised such a spell. But a key such as this seemed to be inviting and perhaps even promising something, throwing down a challenge like the whistle in the M R James story: use me if you dare.

  Emma gave me the key and I zipped it in the inside pocket of my handbag, a hostage to fortune.

  On Saturday it turned out that Ronnie, though recovered, was still feeling a bit washed out, and not up to tennis. Desma said that in that case, rather than play American which was never awfully satisfactory, she’d drop out too so she and Rick could make a start on decorating the bathroom – which left Sabine and me to play singles.

  I had no expectations whatever, but on this occasion Sabine played poorly by her standards, with an unprecedented number of unforced errors and double faults, and I actually snatched the second set. This rattled her sufficiently for me to take her to seven-five in the third, so although I emerged the loser yet again, it was with greater honour than usual.

  As we shook hands over the net she didn’t go so far as to congratulate me but said: ‘I’m sorry, I simply was not seeing the ball today.’

  ‘That’s all right. Your loss was my gain.’

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Of course.’

  In the Cutter Bar she lit up a king-size and ordered a bottle of sauvignon.

  ‘Do you mind? I’m in a drinking mood.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘No, you be mine, Eve.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I knew better than to argue, even though both of us had cars parked out on the prom. It was understood that I would stay within the limit (a phrase, I thought, which might have been my motto) and nervously pass at least one panda car on the way home, while Sabine would quaff as much as she wanted, jump straight into her four-by-four and belt back up to her clifftop hideaway completely unremarked.

  She sighed impatiently like a steam train in a siding as the waiter poured us both a glass. The moment he’d gone she took a generous draught and announced:

  ‘So – these young people seem to have formed a liaison.’ She gave the word its full French pronunciation, resonant with erotic possibilities.

  ‘Have they?’

  ‘Of course – Ben is almost living at our house!’

  ‘Really?’ My first question had been rhetorical, the second was prompted by genuine surprise.

  ‘Oh yes! Surely you knew – you must have noticed.’

  ‘Well, I knew he liked Sophie, but he’s out such a lot … to be honest I don’t keep a very close track of his movements.’ I heard how this might sound, and added: ‘ I do hope he’s not making a nuisance of himself.’

  ‘Not to me!’ answered Sabine gaily. ‘I can’t speak for Sophie.’

  ‘Just so long as he’s not.’

  It was ridiculous, really, that I should be affecting all this concern for Sabine, the absolute tranquillity of whose life was beyond dispute. She had the space, the time, the money and the marriage to ensure that she need never be bothered by anyone. On the other hand the thought of Ben prowling in and out of Chateau Drage at all hours of the day and night in hot pursuit of the lovely Sophie embarrassed me slightly. Unlike me, Sabine wasn’t used to the brutally open way in which the amorous intrigues of the young were conducted. Sophisticate though she undoubtedly was, I had a nasty feeling that she cherished notions of courtship which bore little relation to the pungently hormonal reality.

  But no, she was all smiles. ‘ Far from it, Eve, it’s a pleasure to have him around. And anyway, as you know, he’s doing me a favour. If Sophie is happy, then I am happy. Ben has relieved me of the burden of responsibility.’

  I was pleased, even if I was surprised. ‘Good. I’m delighted.’

  ‘Who knows,’ mused Sabine happily, ‘where it may lead?’

  ‘I don’t think we should get too carried away,’ I said, adding with a certain shy pride: ‘I’m afraid Ben has a bit of a reputation.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, with his looks, and his air—’ she twirled a slender hand in the air, suggesting much that was alluring but indefinable. ‘I think this is the perfect way for Sophie to learn about romance. A young girl should have an affair with someone more experienced. And if it’s someone close to her own age, then so much the better.’

  ‘What makes you think Sophie is inexperienced?’ I was genuinedly intrigued. ‘Nineteen isn’t the same as it was in our day.’

  Sabine laughed benignly. ‘I admit she is not as naïve as I at first thought, but Eve, she has led a very sheltered life. Martin is an old-fashioned father.’

  ‘She hasn’t spent much time with him,’ I pointed out. ‘What’s her mother like?’

  ‘A country lady with a big bottom,’ said Sabine. ‘Please. I don’t care to think about it.’ Bottoms were a key criterion with her, a kind of fleshy barometer of acceptability, and I shifted my own self-consciously on the seat. Unaware of any discomfort she might have caused she raised her glass. ‘Here’s to young love!’

  ‘Why not?’ I agreed, and we clinked glasses.

  After I’d done my shopping I had to go to the library, and my route from the multi-storey took me past HMV. Though in the face of Sabine’s untypical enthusiasm I’d presented a cool façade, I was actually aglow with the possibilities of a relationship between Ben and Sophie, and I couldn’t resist glancing into the shop to catch a glimpse of my lady-killing son. It just so happened he was on the till by the door, swiping somebody’s credit card through the machine.

  ‘Hi there,’ he said to me, and then, ‘Sign here please,’ to the customer.

  I went in and hovered. When the customer had gone, I said: ‘ I wasn�
�t actually going to come in, I was on my way to the library.’

  ‘You need to cut out all this wild self-indulgence, Mum.’

  ‘As a matter of fact I’ve been playing tennis and drinking with Sabine.’

  ‘Frenchie – how was she?’

  ‘She won, but less convincingly than usual.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  On duty as he was I had him on the spot, so I dared to add: ‘She said you’ve been up at their place a lot recently.’

  ‘Did she? Well if she said that it must be true.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be nosey.’

  ‘Yes you did.’ He flashed me a look that was, for him, almost angry. ‘It’s in your job description.’

  It was in his job description to tell me to butt out, and I did.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Mel on the phone a couple of nights later. ‘So you bumped into Mr McNally again.’

  ‘Heavens, news travels fast!’

  ‘It does in the business community. We’re worse than any curtain-twitching suburb.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  I’m friendly with the PA in his office here, and she told me the great man had met my mother at a bash in the UK.’

  ‘It was one of those silly coincidences,’ I said lightly. ‘I was at a drinks party given by the Drages and it turned out he was a friend of theirs, or Martin’s anyway.’

  ‘Did he recognise you immediately?’

  ‘He seemed to.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Well obviously he rang a bell.…’

  ‘How fortuitous.’

  ‘But the real news is that Ben’s seeing Martin’s daughter.’

  Mel’s rather harsh laugh came snapping over the line. ‘Poor girl!’

  ‘I can assure you she’s well up to the challenge from what I can see.’

  ‘I’ll believe you.’

  ‘I think it’s quite serious for once. I got my head bitten off the other day just for mentioning it.’

  ‘OK. And what about Charles McNally, are there plans afoot?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Even I realised how ridiculously emphatic I sounded, and it certainly wasn’t lost on Mel.

  ‘It’s not such a silly question.’

  ‘I mean we don’t know each other, it simply doesn’t arise, we just happened to bump into one another at a drinks party. Plus he’s over there.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Mel. But as she went onto tell me about her trip to Dubai both she and I knew that she had had the last word, and that ‘fine’ wasn’t really it.

  I went to call on Ronnie after work one day. It was, of course, a friendly gesture, but also a selfish one – I needed to know she was fully recovered. It was a quirk of mine: I hated losing things, and that included the company of my friends. It put me off my stroke. So I was checking up on Ronnie for my own sake as well as hers. I made it appear as casual as possible, turning up on her doorstep in my Bouvier’s suit and leaving the car door open as though I anticipated jumping straight back in.

  She looked the picture of health and was delighted to see me.

  ‘Eve, come in! Tea? Drink? Sun’s over the yard arm.’

  ‘Just the one, Mrs Bridges.’ I went and closed the car door.

  ‘This is so nice,’ she said, leading the way to the large, well-appointed kitchen. ‘I’m not used to being ill, I’ve missed everyone.’

  ‘Are you tennis-fit again now?’

  ‘Good grief, yes, can’t wait. But I’ll be sadly out of practice.’

  ‘Your loss is our gain, we’ll get to look better.’ I took a glass of wine and we went out into the garden and sat down on the bleached swing seat. Shandford, though not a fraction as lavish as Headlands, was middle-class and mellow, with contents that appeared to have been there for ever. In Sabine’s house you marvelled at how impeccably thought-through were the design, the decor, the furnishings: in Ronnie’s nothing seemed thought about at all.

  ‘Where are the boys?’ I asked.

  ‘Philip’s just gone to Turkey and Simon’s in Cornwall, so all is peace, perfect peace. But speaking of tennis, Dennis and I are withdrawing to the Auvergne in ten days’ time, for two weeks, so it would be good to get a game in before then.’

  ‘We will, definitely. I’ll ring round the others and fix it.’

  We sipped and swung idly. Ours was not an especially close, but a pleasantly relaxed and undemanding friendship. Ronnie was a contented woman, and her contentment cast a glow on those in her company.

  ‘Your roses are lovely,’ I remarked.

  ‘It’s been a good year. The old-fashioned ones have been amazing … the scent … would you like to take some with you?’

  ‘They’re nicer here.’

  We swung a bit more, and then Ronnie said: ‘Sabine rang me up. She was in a matchmaking mood.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘She’s been on to you as well, then. What am I saying of course she has!’

  ‘About Ben and Sophie, oh yes.’ I smiled tolerantly. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me to find she’s booked the marquee already.’

  ‘Young love has certainly found approval in the Drage household, she’s absolutely full of it.’

  ‘Heaven knows why, it wouldn’t exactly be a glittering match for Sophie. In fact knowing Sabine I’m amazed she doesn’t suspect Ben of gold-digging. But she seems to think he’s the answer to a maiden’s prayer.’

  ‘Which is all rather sweet when you come to think of it,’ observed Ronnie, reaching for the bottle and topping us up.

  ‘Just as long as it doesn’t end in tears.’

  ‘Eve!’ Ronnie sighed humorously, shaking her head. She tapped the bottle. ‘It’s half full, not half empty.’

  ‘A third full.’

  Ronnie ignored this. ‘ I tell you what, she seems to cherish some hopes conerning you as well.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Somebody called Chuck? McDonald? McAlpine?’

  ‘Charles McNally.’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘She’s barking up completely the wrong tree.’

  ‘Oh well, it’s all keeping her happy. I’ve never known Sabine so sweet-tempered.’

  I was suddenly restless. I put my glass down and said: ‘ I ought to be going.’

  Ronnie continued to move the swing gently, with one foot, just enough to detain me. ‘How’s Ian?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Do you see anything of each other these days?’

  ‘A little. We’re still friends, after all.’

  ‘I do admire you for that.’

  I felt a flush of embarrassment at my hypocrisy. ‘It’s not very admirable. I’m not even sure it’s true any more.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘He has someone else.’

  Ronnie’s expression of friendly interest didn’t alter. ‘Only to be expected, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes – yes of course.’

  ‘It sets you free in a way, doesn’t it,’ she suggested.

  ‘I hadn’t looked at it like that.’

  ‘I mean you were free anyway, but this sort of gives you permission to go for it.’

  I grimaced. ‘I can’t exactly see myself going to singles bars or joining a dating agency.’

  ‘No, no, that wouldn’t be you, Eve. But at least you can move on.’

  ‘Yes.’ I knew she was right, but I wanted to cry. Unexpectedly she stopped rocking the seat and pressed my hand.

  ‘It must be difficult, though.’

  The minute I turned out of the drive the tears began to course down my cheeks. Sniffing and choking I trundled along, swiping unprettily at my nose and cheeks with my sleeve and praying no one else I knew would spot me. I hadn’t really got a clue what I was crying about, or who for, but it hurt so much that I could only conclude it was for myself.

  I’d just about got a grip by the time I reached Cliff Mansions, and was sufficiently in command to plan a stiff walk along the cliffs. I’d been brought up to believe in the
restorative properties of fresh air and exercise which, while resolving nothing, made one so much more philosophical about the problems.

  As I opened the door of the flat I felt a waft of sea air, and realised I must have gone out and left the balcony door open. It wasn’t until I walked into the sitting room that I saw Ben and Sophie sitting on the floor of the balcony, drinking bottled beer. They were both looking my way, alerted by the sound of front door.

  ‘Hello!’ I cried, painfully aware of my mascara and emotion-blotched appearance. ‘Hang on, must dash.’

  I went into the bathroom, splashed my face, touched up my eyes, and flushed the loo before coming out. They were still sitting there, but no longer looking in my direction. I went out to join them. Sophie was in her farm overalls, like a fetching ingénue in some musical production of Li’l Abner. Now that I had, literally, regained face, I was cheered to see them.

  ‘This is nice,’ I said. ‘Are you staying for supper?’

  ‘That’s really kind of you, Eve, but I think we’re going out,’ replied Sophie, casting a quizzical look at Ben for his confirmation of the arrangement.

  ‘Well in that case I’ll get myself a drink.…’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Ben. He pulled himself up in one long movement, ankles crossed, arms stretched forward, and went past me towards the kitchen, giving my arm a confiding and affectionate squeeze on the way. My inconsolable wretchedness of a few minutes ago was transformed by this small gesture into quite unjustified happiness.

  I sat down on one of my two black wrought-iron chairs. Sophie moved her finger round and round on the mouth of her beer bottle. I sensed she was looking at me through her lashes.

  ‘How’s work?’ I asked. ‘How’s the farm?’

  ‘Big business,’ she replied, ‘To be honest I’d be better off on some smallholding in the sticks, but Father’s intent on doing his bit – which I appreciate,’ she added with a rueful look. ‘So I’ll see it out.’

  ‘He obviously loves having you around,’ I said, and then added boldly, ‘and it’s nice for Sabine, too – having another woman about the place.’

  Now the eyelashes lifted and that dark, remorselessly candid gaze levelled itself at me.

  ‘Hm … Maybe.’