That Was Then Read online

  He popped in his last mouthful and patted his mouth with his napkin while we gaped.

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Mel, speaking for all of us. ‘Because if so, I have several supplementaries that I’d like to put to you.’

  Clive swallowed and patted some more. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘For a start,’ said Mel, fixing him with her almost-rude unblinking look, ‘ you were having a seizure down there.’

  ‘I may have overdone it slightly.’

  ‘How long have you been running for?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘About an hour, I should think.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean today, I mean since you started.’

  ‘I understood the nature of the query.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Ben tilted his fork at at Clive and looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘This was your first time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you ran – for an hour?’

  ‘Well …’ Clive chortled nervously. ‘I use the term loosely. I walked up most of the hills.’

  ‘Most. Of the hills.’ echoed Mel. The conversation was turning into a kind of ensemble piece for four voices, with an audience of one.

  ‘That’s right. There are several fairly daunting inclines between here and Brighton.’

  Sophie clapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘Did you say Brighton?’

  ‘Um – yes.’ Clive’s eyes flicked round the other faces gauging whether to be vaunting or modest. But vaunting was never his style, and he began folding his napkin fussily. ‘I was probably being over-ambitious.’

  Mel put her knife and fork together and slid her glass towards me to be refreshed.

  ‘No you weren’t.’

  ‘You think not?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not ambitious, Clive. You were out of your tiny mind.’

  I had to bite my tongue not to check her. But Clive, bless him, was the least self-important person on the planet, and merely gazed round anxiously at us all.

  ‘Yes, I believe you’re right.’

  ‘But how did you do it?’ exclaimed Ben, rocking his chair back from the table. He turned to the rest of us, eyes wide. ‘How did he do it?’ Sophie leaned across to Clive. ‘We want to know how you did

  it.’

  He knitted his brows apologetically. ‘You may well ask,’ he said.

  ‘And the answer is, with the greatest possible difficulty.’

  By the end of lunch we had persuaded him of the advisability of taking things in easy stages. While the others stacked the machine he and I sat on the balcony, and I asked him what I hadn’t liked to ask in front of them.

  ‘Clive – what exactly brought this on?’

  ‘Well as I said, Catherine—’

  ‘No, but why, really? I mean, are you and Catherine – is there something between you? I only ask,’ I added gently, ‘because it would be so lovely if there were.’

  He shook his head so vigorously his spectacles nearly came off.

  ‘Absolutely not. Eve! A thousand times no.’

  ‘But you like each other,’ I said hopefully. ‘Something could develop.’

  ‘There isn’t even the remotest possibility, I do assure you. For one thing she’s probably twenty years younger than me—’

  I brightened. ‘That’s no barrier these days.’

  ‘It is to me. Or would be. But the thing of it is, I love my wife.’ He gave his empty little laugh. ‘Sadly.’

  Mel came to the door. ‘Coffee, people?’

  We declined. ‘ It is sad, but not in the way that I think you mean,’ I said when she’d gone. ‘Helen has someone else, but you’re a lovely, intelligent man, Clive, don’t go looking gift happiness in the mouth.’

  He gave me a wistful look. ‘Are you telling me to learn to live again?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Strange as it may seem, that is what I’m trying to do. Catherine has this thing that she says: “ it doesn’t have to be like this”. At first I thought it simply jejune, but the other day I suddenly felt the force of it. I don’t have to be this repellent, prematurely-aged fat person.’

  ‘Clive, you are not repellent.’

  He hadn’t heard me. ‘I can do something about it, Eve! I intend to. I feel sorry for Helen, all these years, putting up with me. My wife is a tall, beautiful woman and I – I’m a troll.’

  ‘Clive …’ I wanted to cry. I held out my hand but he waved it away. His self-loathing was terrible to see.

  ‘Physical appearance isn’t everything,’ I said lamely. ‘Especially when it comes to women’s feelings for men.’

  He plucked at the knee of Bernard’s beige slacks. ‘ You’ve seen Kerridge, have you?’

  ‘Well, I’ve glimpsed—’

  ‘I rest my case.’

  I should certainly have cried then, had not Ben and Sophie announced that they were going over to Brighton. ‘Can we give you a lift?’ asked Ben.

  ‘That would be terribly kind. Are you sure it’s no trouble?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘What nice children you have,’ Clive said as he picked up the plastic carrier into which I’d packed his ill-fated running gear. ‘And good neighbours. I shall return these things as soon as I can.’

  I nodded, not trusting my voice. Then Ben and Sophie were upon us, Ben took the bag and they were gone, happily ignorant of this small tragedy. On the bend in the stairs Sophie looked up and gave me a little wave. For a nanosecond I relived the earlier sensation that there was a disclosure waiting in the wings, and my heart lifted.

  As I closed the door Mel called from the balcony: ‘Come on out, the water’s lovely!’

  The muffling channel dampness of the morning had given way to sunshine. The prom still gleamed with puddles and the sea, on its way out, was playful with small, bounding waves. A golden retriever ran in and out fetching a stick. Some boys were dragging a dinghy down the shingle. The air, that rang with gulls’ cries, smelt salty and clean. Above the Martello Tower a bright orange kite swooped and strained against the white cliffs.

  ‘Proper sea,’ observed Mel as I sat down. ‘Not like that warm soup we have to make do with over there.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m very lucky.’

  ‘We had such a nice walk this morning. He enjoyed it once he got going.’

  ‘Good.’

  She put her feet up on the rail and said, without looking at me. ‘I wouldn’t set too much store by this Sophie thing if I were you.’

  ‘I don’t set anything by it,’ I lied.

  ‘That’s all right then. Because it’s my belief they’re nothing more than chums.’

  ‘Really?’ I couldn’t conceal my scepticism. ‘That’s not how it looks to the rest of us.’

  ‘Rose-coloured specs, Mother.’

  ‘Don’t take my word for it, you should hear Sabine.’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘She says he practically lives up there. And rather to my surprise she seems thrilled with the whole thing.’

  Mel ignored this remark so completely that I was left wondering whether I’d just imagined making it. When she next spoke it was to change the subject completely.

  ‘So what’s the story with Clive?’

  ‘Oh, I can hardly bear to … He wants to turn himself into a sex god like Helen’s inamoratus, John Kerridge.’

  ‘Is Kerridge a sex god?’

  ‘Of a certain type. Dapper, well-presented. Almost certainly goes to a gym and plays squash, or possibly soccer.’

  ‘He sounds ghastly.’

  ‘But Helen doesn’t know or care how he gets his muscles, she only knows he has them.’

  Mel snorted dismissively. ‘A schoolgirl crush.’

  ‘Mel! She’s my age! She left home for it!’

  ‘Mother! QED.’

  ‘But Clive’s so lovely – so intelligent and generous and thoroughly honourable.’

  ‘That’s his problem, then.’

  ‘What?’

  Mel put down her coffee mu
g and addressed me with an air of studied patience. ‘No danger. The attraction of Kerridge isn’t his washboard stomach, it’s his complete lack of generosity and honour.’

  I shook my head. ‘That’s much too simplistic—’

  ‘And Clive’s solution isn’t?’ I opened my mouth. ‘Look. I’m all for the poor soul smartening himself up a bit, getting the flab under control – there are far too many middle-aged Englishmen wandering about with their paunches wobbling over their waistbands, but if he thinks it’s going to bring the lady wife home he’s barking up the wrong rowing machine.’

  I agreed with her, but not for quite the same reasons. ‘He needs to do something,’ I said, ‘ and this at least will make him feel better.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mel laughed shortly. ‘I could see that, down there on the doorstep.’

  ‘You know what I mean. In the long term. If he goes about it the right way.’

  Mel didn’t reply. She didn’t need to – the expression on her face said it all.

  After an interval, she swung her feet down and said: ‘ Shall we go down on the beach? I’ve got an uncontrollable urge to divebomb that floating branch.’

  It was nice to be on the shingle. I took the director’s chair that Ben had given me, with SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED on the back and sat like a politically-correct Canute while Mel stood barefoot at the edge of the water, shying stones at the bobbing piece of driftwood. After a bit she gave up, and hobbled back to sit by me, rummaging with one hand for interesting stones.

  ‘Did you sink it?’ I asked.

  ‘I would have done, but the tide’s still going out. Now then, Mother, what about you?’

  ‘What about me.’

  ‘Well, Dad’s got himself fixed up, Ben has plenty to occupy him. Isn’t it time you had someone in your life?’

  ‘I’m not looking,’ I replied, weary of this subject and of Mel’s obsessive worrying of it. ‘It’s the last thing on my mind.’

  ‘I don’t believe you—’ she held up a carnelian – ‘ that’s pretty.’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘Did I tell you,’ she said, pocketing the stone and continuing to rummage, ‘ that Charles McNally’s in London at the moment?’

  ‘No you didn’t.’

  ‘Well he is. And he asked after you.’

  ‘That was civil of him.’

  ‘No it wasn’t! He wasn’t being civil Mother, he was being interested. He’s interested in you. I’m tempted to add God knows why since you’re such a spoilsport about the whole thing, but unfortunately there’s no escaping the fact that you’re a good-looking, educated, sympathetic sort of woman of the right age and he finds himself thinking about you!’

  Even as I smarted I realised I’d been given a compliment.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure. And he, in case you hadn’t noticed, is rugged, savvy, loaded and has all his own hair. And single, Mother. Watch my lips. Single. No dependants. Not even a previous marriage and no stains on the character that I know of.’

  From an ingrained habit of doubt, I said: ‘That in itself is a bit suspicious.’

  She lowered her head despairingly on to her knees, and said from there: ‘ Well I dare say if it makes you happy there may be some blighted teenage romance in the dim and distant. I’ll see what I can come up with.’

  ‘So what’s he doing in London?’ I asked with what I hoped was the right degree of sophisticated detachment.

  ‘Looking for a flat, inter alia.’

  ‘Oh? I thought he was based in the States.’

  ‘He hasn’t been based anywhere much. I told you, he troubleshoots, so it’s wherever he lays his hat. But now he’s coming up to fifty they’re taking him out of the front line and from January he’ll be in London for a couple of years.’

  ‘I see.’

  Mel gazed up at me. ‘He asked if you ever got up to town.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I said yes.’

  ‘Mel!’

  ‘Straight question, straight answer. I didn’t tell him your bra measurement or anything. Gosh, I wish I’d brought my bimmer.’

  Wearily, I told her she could borrow mine.

  She went back to the flat and came back over with my M&S purple interlock under her jeans. I watched as she waded, dived, and swam furiously out to sea. If the shock of the bracing English sea had made her gasp she would never let me know it. When she was a couple of hundred yards out, no more than a bobbing speck on the glittering swell, she lifted an arm, and I waved back.

  But when she eventually returned she was shivering, and dragged her clothes back on with impressive sleight of hand for one used to the luxurious changing facilities of a five-star hotel. Then she lay back with her hands behind her head and closed her eyes.

  I almost believed her to be asleep when she suddenly said, loud and clear:

  ‘Clive. Can you credit it? It never ceases to amaze me what people will do for love.’

  That evening she got restless, as I knew she would. My daughter was not one of those who, when cooped up in luxury, dreamed only of a boiled egg, Marmite soldiers and the Antiques Roadshow. So in spite of the large lunch we’d eaten in the middle of the afternoon, we left a note for Ben and went out.

  She drove, with one elbow on the door and three fingers on the wheel, the other hand resting lightly on the gear lever. I had tender feelings for my little car and to begin with my foot was pumping up and down on an invisible brake pedal. But Mel was an accomplished driver and got us to the Saxon Mill without a moment’s anxiety.

  ‘Darling,’ I said, ‘this place is horrifically expensive and I’m not even that hungry.’

  ‘Well, we can just have a starter then, my treat. But it’s more fun to watch the world go by.’

  I wasn’t sure whether the Saxon Mill was the sort of place where two women eating only starters would be especially welcome but told myself that Mel was figuratively as well as literally in the driving seat, so that would be her problem.

  We were sitting in the faux drawing room, whose bay windows overlooked the garden and the millstream, when a waft of familiar scent reached me just ahead of the voice:

  ‘Eve! And can that possibly be Mel?’

  ‘Hello Sabine.’

  ‘May we join you?’

  ‘Do.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ suggested Martin in her wake, ‘you’d rather talk amongst yourselves.’

  I suppose I would have said no – what else can one do – but Mel’s reply was far more emphatic than mine would have been.

  ‘You’re joking, Martin, this is exactly what we were hoping for, isn’t it Mother?’

  I agreed weakly that it was, and they sat down. Martin ordered drinks for them, another gin and tonic for me and a diet Coke for Mel.

  ‘Well!’ he said, slapping his big hands together in obvious delight. ‘Sorry to bandy a cliché, but do you come here often?’

  ‘Virtually never,’ I said. ‘This is courtesy of Mel.’

  ‘And we thought you were out in the desert,’ said Sabine, ‘ and not back for another year.’

  ‘They gave me time off for good behaviour,’ explained Mel.

  Martin chortled. ‘We’ll believe you.’

  ‘Did you know Chuck McNally was in London?’ Sabine’s insinuating glance slid over me for a microsecond. ‘ He’s posted here for a while.’

  ‘I had heard,’ said Mel, ‘on the bush telegraph. He and I aren’t exactly in the same stratum, but the oil community’s worse than an English seaside town when it comes to gossip.’

  Martin laughed heartily. ‘ Sabine’s hoping that Eve will really give them something to gossip about!’

  ‘Martin!’ Sabine was reproving, but coquettishly so. Mel raised a laconic eyebrow: she didn’t have to say anything. And I was damned if I was going to.

  Martin, entirely unrepentant, moved swiftly from one contentious subject to another. ‘If you’re wondering where your son’s got to, he’s up at our place.’


  ‘Comme toujours,’ said Sabine.

  ‘Yes, I guessed.’

  Mel was studying the menu. ‘This looks quite good … But we’re only here for the movement and colour, you know. Mother killed the fatted calf at lunch time.’

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘it was three o’clock.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Martin, ‘we’re meeting some oppos so you’re not going to be stuck with us – in fact, darling, there they are. Bill! Hey!’

  Sabine unfurled from her seat, willowy in a buttermilk shift. Her movement caused another flutter of expensive scent to settle over us like rose petals. As she dropped delicate kisses on our cheeks I realised what was different about her. She had always been elegant, but tonight she was pretty.

  Unusually, Mel commented on this too as we ate our assiettes de campagne. ‘She’s looking good, don’t you think?’

  ‘She always does.’

  ‘Smart, yes, but whence this glow?’

  ‘Maybe their marriage is enjoying a renaissance.’

  With one accord we looked across the dining room to where the Drages and their glossy pals were taking delivery of a dizzying array of starters.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Mel.

  Her flight the next day was at one, but she needed to get back to town to pack up and check out of the hotel, so it was seven a.m. when we stood together on the station platform. She was itching to be gone now, to have the farewells over with and return to her other more exhilarating life, but I wasn’t about to let her off so easily. At this time of day there was a distinctly autumnal feel to the air, and she shivered and stamped, peering up the line with ostentatious impatience.

  ‘You’re still enjoying it over there, are you darling?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure. And anyway, let’s not be mealy-mouthed, you don’t take a UAE placement for the spiritual enrichment, you take it for the bunce.’

  ‘I suppose so. But we miss you, you know. It’ll be nice when you’re back properly.’

  ‘Don’t bank on it Mother. Jesus—!’ She blew her cheeks out and chafed her upper arms – ‘Right now I can’t wait to get back to some reliable sunshine.’