That Was Then Read online

  It was the usual story this evening. There were plenty of fag ends and beer bottles, a couple of questionable magazines and an unopened condom on the bedside table. I took it all in my stride, stacking the crockery on a tray and dropping the rubbish in a binbag, both of which I put outside the door. When I went back in to open the window I noticed, scrunched between the pillows and the bedhead, the ageing stuffed bear with alopoecia, last vestige of a bygone innocence.

  Touched, I retrieved the bear – Algy – and sat him up on top of the pillows. Then I went into the kitchen and put my spinach cannelloni in the microwave.

  Chapter Five

  ‘She’s here!’ hissed Sabine, who was ringing me at work.

  ‘And how many heads does she have?’ I asked.

  ‘You make a joke of it, Eve,’ she said reproachfully, her voice still lowered, ‘ but it is very alarming to have a strange young woman in the house when one is not used to it.’

  ‘You’ll soon shake down,’ I suggested. ‘What’s she doing at the moment?’

  ‘Nothing until Monday – merde!’

  ‘No, I mean at this exact moment. As we speak.’

  ‘Calling her mother.’ The last word faded slightly as though Sabine were looking over her shoulder. ‘I still can’t believe she’s going to be living here.’

  ‘She’s not that bad though, is she?’

  ‘Oh, who can say,’ said Sabine, as though this was actually the last thing to concern anyone. ‘Round-face, brown hair, plummy voice, your typical English schoolgirl.’

  Visualising some of the schoolgirls I knew I took leave to doubt that Martin’s daughter was typical.

  ‘But she’s not a schoolgirl, she’s a student,’ I said.

  ‘No, no – this one is a schoolgirl, believe me.’ Sabine was clearly undecided whether to represent her charge as being nothing but trouble or too boring to be trouble. ‘ I use it as a generic term.’

  ‘At least she doesn’t sound the sort to give you a hard time.’

  ‘She is here. That is all.’

  ‘Poor Sabine.’

  ‘Don’t laugh at me, Eve.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I’m not.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You don’t understand.’

  She was serious, so I tried to be. ‘ Maybe not, but I do have an imagination. I think you’re winding yourself up unneccessarily. Everything will be fine.’

  ‘What I find so unreasonable,’ went on Sabine as though I hadn’t spoken, ‘is that this is Martin’s daughter, but it is I who will have to make all the effort.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he goes out and I am here!’

  ‘Isn’t she going to work on the farm?’

  ‘Eventually. Until then I shall have to talk to her, to keep her amused, to eat lunch with her for as far as the eye can see – Hell, she’s coming! Bye—!’

  It was just as well she hung up because by this time I was laughing out loud.

  It was, as Sabine had not said but might well have done, easy for me to laugh. It was the lunch hour and as soon as I’d put the phone down I switched off the VDU and went out into the breezy sunshine to eat my sandwich on the prom. I was awfully glad I didn’t have a strange nineteen-year-old to entertain at this moment, let alone back at Cliff Mansions for the next several months. My sympathy for Sabine was more heartfelt than she could possibly realise. I took no pleasure in her discomfort, if you didn’t count my relief that it wasn’t me. I had come to the single life late, and like all converts I was more passionate about my cause than those who had known no other. Sabine’s house was so empty, so immaculate, so perfect and pristine, and her existence (Martin notwithstanding) so flawlessly self-centred, that I could all too clearly imagine her dismay at this invasion. Martin’s blameless, expensively-educated daughter must appear to her like a noxious incubus, sucking away her freedom and leaving a ring round the bath. Whatever Sophie Drage was, she’d never be right. The girl didn’t exist who would have suited Sabine. If she were a crisp sophisticate she’d be competition. If she were pretty and fluttery she’d be dismissed as vacuous. As it was, she was a chubby trainee vet. But none of that was the point. Her chief and unforgivable crime was that she was there.

  Yes, as I returned to my flat at the end of the day I could find it in my heart to feel some sympathy for Sabine. I had my space to myself, except for Ben, who as my own flesh and blood didn’t count. I remembered longing, along with everyone else, for the children to be old enough to leave home, but since Ben’s return I’d discovered the comfort to be derived from having another adult about the place, one who expected little, demanded nothing, and was too happily self-absorbed to make judgements. There was also something touching in the fact that he was here because he chose to be. He could have given in to Nozz’s blandishments or shacked up – heaven forfend – with Pearl or any one of her smitten predecessors, but he had chosen to live here, with me, where he could keep Algy on his bed without fear of mockery. I wasn’t entirely naive, I acknowledged that this state of affairs had much to do with the presence of a washing machine, tumble drier, and well-stocked freezer, but just the same.…

  Sabine rang again at about ten, and launched straight back into her diatribe as though she’d never hung up.

  ‘She’s gone to bed! Can you imagine? It’s barely ten and she’s gone upstairs!’

  ‘I’d have thought you’d have been pleased.’

  ‘But what sort of nineteen-year-old goes to bed at this hour? It’s not natural.’

  I ignored the comment and answered the question: ‘A clean-living one?’

  ‘Eve – would you care for a nightcap?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, really—’

  ‘Please, I need some adult company.’

  ‘Where’s Martin?’

  ‘He’s around somewhere, but that doesn’t matter.’

  No point in explaining that wasn’t what I meant. ‘It’s a bit late, Sabine.’

  ‘Don’t you start!’ ‘I mean I couldn’t even be with you before about half past—’ ‘Horror upon horror!’ ‘I’ll see you shortly.’

  Sabine had her own separate drawing room, full of pretty and elegant French things, and it was here that she poured two huge Armagnacs and announced:

  ‘I have reached a decision.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I am going to give a party for her.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I said carefully, wondering what had brought this on. ‘Who will you invite?’

  ‘Everyone. Le tout Littelsea. I need to wrest back the initiative.’

  ‘You feel that Sophie’s taken it then …?’

  ‘By default – default? Is that what I mean?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘It’s Martin’s birthday at the end of next week, so I thought I might combine the two.’ She sipped her Armagnac and flashed me a quick look. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘A party never does any harm. As long as you—’

  ‘What?’ She was imperious, impatient.

  ‘As long as you invite some people her own age.’

  ‘I do not wish to preside over an orgy, for heaven’s sake. The idea is to have a civilised gathering, Pimms on the terrace I thought, to enable her to meet some of her father’s friends and colleagues. And her stepmother’s, of course.’ She drooped one perfectly manicured hand, wrist uppermost, in my direction. ‘To make her feel more at home.’

  And to put the poor girl firmly in her place, I thought. My face must have betrayed something because Sabine said sharply: ‘You are not convinced.’

  ‘Of course I am. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think. It’s not up to me. It’s Martin’s birthday, and she’ll like that.’

  ‘Quite.’ We sipped in silence for a moment. ‘Oh! This is something I shall miss – a quiet drink with a friend.’

  She was determined still to represent herself as the condemned woman, but the party idea had cheered her up.

  ‘Would you like to come and see the court?’

  �
��I’d love to.’

  Sabine dipped the brandy bottle over our glasses for a second time and led me out through the French window. There was a clear sky, with the midsummer stars still coming out, and a half moon, but we’d have been able to see in any event because the Drage acres were equipped with cunningly concealed uplighters which bloomed into life at our approach and died in our wake. From the terrace we went across a lawn, and followed a winding path through a tall shrubbery, where occasional statuary flexed pale muscles among the foliage. We were up on the bluff overlooking Littelsea, and about half a mile from the cliff edge. On this still night we could hear the soft surge of the sea.

  At the court, which was shielded on the seaward side by trees, Sabine flicked a switch and we were in full daylight. The work was more or less complete except for the surrounding patio and summerhouse. We walked to the service line and Sabine tapped her ne ultima wedge-soled trainer on the ground. It was smooth as a billiard table.

  ‘This is the best surface in the world,’ she told me. ‘We shan’t know ourselves.’

  I suggested mischievously: ‘Maybe Sophie plays.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Private schools are usually hot on tennis. She could even be rather good.’

  ‘We shall see,’ said Sabine forbiddingly. ‘But who would she play with?’

  It was no good. On this subject Sabine was operating in a parallel universe, from which she would have to return of her own volition and under her own steam.

  We strolled in silence round the court, sipping our brandies. We paused by the plastic-shrouded structure that would be the summerhouse.

  ‘It’s going to be fully equipped,’ she explained to me. ‘There will be a fridge, a sound system … With this climate of yours one needs a bolthole.’ It was Sabine’s habit to play off her adopted country against her natural one. So bad weather was always ours, sunshine always hers; apalling restaurants were typical of us, excellent ones just like home; any kind of elegance or good living was something the poor benighted British had learned from her countrymen, but any display of drunkenness and sloth was – naturellement – all their own.

  ‘It’s going to be quite wonderful,’ I assured her. ‘Perhaps Martin will start to take an interest?’

  She pulled a face. ‘I do hope not. If there is one thing I cannot stand it’s those terrible mixed doubles with a lot of middle-aged men soft-balling the women, and desperate wives with their cellulite on show flirting with other people’s husbands.’

  You had to love her. ‘Well, if you put it like that.…’

  ‘I do, Eve, I do! Shall we move on?’

  Sabine switched off the floodlights and we left the tennis court. I followed submissively where she led. We went back through the shrubbery, between the stony gazes of the statues, and then round the lawn to the south side of the house. Here, on a terrace all of its own, the Drage’s asymmetrical rounded pool, the shape of an artist’s palette, lay smooth as glass in its setting of terra-cotta tiles, lavender and tumbling pelargoniums. On the far side was the Victorian gazebo, the remains of which had already been here, and which Sabine and Martin had had moved and restored to considerably more than its former glory.

  We walked down shallow rustic steps towards the pool. I glanced up at the house, with its many gables and splendid conservatory, and wondered where the others were. The odd light burned, but that meant nothing, because the Drages had assorted lamps on a time switch to dissuade the hapless burglars who would otherwise be caught bang to rights by their fiendishly sensitive and centrally-connected security system. It was odd to think that Martin and his daughter were around somewhere, and might even, separately or together, be watching us as we discussed them.

  The possibility of invisible spectators clearly didn’t bother Sabine, because when we reached the bottom of the steps, she suddenly said: ‘ Would you like to swim?’

  ‘I don’t know … I don’t have a cozzie.’

  She gave me the look she was undoubtedly going to bestow on Sophie. ‘Eve – you are in a large private garden in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Of course, how silly.’

  ‘I’m going to.’

  Smartening her pace and swallowing her brandy she set off round the pool to the gazebo. She put her glass down on the table, heeled off her shoes and began peeling off her trousers, shirt and halter top, revealing the fact that she wore no underwear and was the same even colour all over. I watched enviously, and in some alarm as she dived in, her smooth, slender, long-limbed body making only the smallest splash as it cut the water.

  She surfaced just as people do in films, shaking silver arcs of drops from her head and face, slicking her hair back with long, tanned fingers, the transformation in her mood was now complete.

  ‘Come on in, it’s beautiful!’ she called, her smile brilliant in her shiny wet face. ‘Don’t be shy,’ she added, ‘you’re looking wonderful at the moment.’

  If Sabine genuinely wished me to overcome my shyness, she should never have made that last remark, which indicated all too clearly that she had been sizing me up not just recently but for some months, or even years.

  She flicked water at me playfully. ‘Get those clothes off, Eve.’

  I retired to the gazebo to undress. At least I had a tan, though my bikini areas were humiliatingly white. I knew I should have strode forth tall and proud, but it was no good – I scuttled, doubled up from the gazebo and belly-flopped into the water with Sabine’s laugh ringing in my ears.

  She was still laughing when I came up for air.

  ‘Really Eve – are you glad you came now?’

  ‘Yes …!’

  Now that I was doing a leisurely breast stroke towards the end of the pool, I was glad. The last time I’d swum was on holiday, when the water had been blissfully cool. In the freshening English evening Sabine’s pool was as tepid and comforting as amniotic fluid.

  She waited for me to draw level and then began to swim alongside me.

  ‘Did you meet anyone interesting when you were away?’ she asked.

  ‘Lots of people.’

  ‘Eve!’

  I sighed. ‘You mean a man.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘There were plenty about – an embarrassment of riches, I suppose. But no one interesting in the way that you mean.’

  ‘What a shame.’

  ‘Not really. I couldn’t have been bothered with it anyway.’

  She sucked her teeth. ‘What sort of attitude is that?’

  ‘A lazy one.’

  She chuckled as we turned and headed back. ‘At least you’re honest about it. But you mustn’t close your mind to opportunities, Eve.’

  Gosh, but she was arrogant. If I’d been at all xenophobic I might have put it down to the natural hauteur of the French, but she was just Sabine, who had life and its mysteries sewn up.

  ‘Hello there! Is this a private thing or can anyone join in?’

  It was Martin, coming down the steps from the house with a towel over his shoulder.

  ‘It’s a private thing, my darling,’ replied Sabine, not joking.

  Martin leaned over the side peering exaggeratedly. ‘Is that Eve in there?’

  ‘Hello Martin.’

  ‘She got you swimming in the buff, I see.’

  ‘Under protest, I might say.’ I began moving away from him again, though the remark had been not in the least salacious.

  ‘You won’t catch me doing it – there are some things better kept covered. In my case, anyway.’ He sat down on a bench outside the gazebo, and dropped his towel on the ground. ‘ So are you saying I’m not allowed to come in?’

  ‘Yes. Eve and I are having a nice peaceful ladies swim,’ replied Sabine.

  ‘In that case I shouldn’t dream of disturbing you.’ He really was the most genial and tolerant of husbands – big, balding, confident: an immensely reassuring presence. On the other hand he didn’t move, but folded his arms and gazed up at the heavens.

  ‘What a n
ight. Astonishing stars … Did you go out in the desert while you were there?’

  ‘We did, yes.’

  ‘That’s the place to see the stars, don’t you agree? Quite wonderful.’

  I came to the side and rested there, a little ashamed of my earlier prim reaction.

  ‘I never believed people who said endless sand could be beautiful. And you’re right about the sky – you feel you could touch it, or bring the stars closer just by breathing in.’

  ‘What are you two talking about?’ called Sabine from the other side.

  ‘Inhaling the desert stars, darling,’ replied Martin. ‘ Do you remember that feeling? In Marrakesh?’

  ‘Superbe,’ she agreed. ‘It was only a pity Eve didn’t find someone to gaze at the stars with.’

  ‘That’s her business,’ said Martin. ‘If she chooses to turn down offers, then …’ He let the remark tail off flatteringly. What a nice man he was.

  ‘How’s your daughter?’ I asked.

  ‘Sophie is tucked up in bed so far as I know.’ Sabine made a watery sound of disbelief, but he went on: ‘I’m pleased to have this opportunity to do something useful for her, that isn’t just a case of writing a cheque.’

  ‘What exactly will she be doing at the farm?’

  ‘General dogsbody, how her father started out.’ Martin was justly proud of his self-made-man status. ‘Help with the stock, learn about the accounting, fetch and carry, grumble about Brussels – you name it.’

  ‘It will probably put her off animals for life,’ said Sabine, joining me at the side.

  ‘If it does,’ said Martin, ‘then that’s a useful lesson learned, and a damn sight better now than when she’s halfway through vet school.’

  ‘Ugh …’ Sabine shuddered fastidiously. ‘It’s beyond me why a girl would want to do such a job anyway, we have seen those terrible programmes on television.’