He was back. She found him in the kitchen eating something from an open tin and drinking something from a brandy glass. Over its rim he smiled and her heart turned over.
‘What peculiar meals you have,’ she said brightly, ‘at peculiar times.’
What she really longed to do was to kiss him, but he was scraping out the tin – Heinz Vegetable Salad – and anyway, still blushing from the chemist’s, she was too selfconscious. So she perched beside him on the kitchen table instead and felt his nearness all up her right-hand side.
Mac took a swig from the brandy glass. ‘You look bonny,’ he said. ‘Quite pink.’
She didn’t tell him why. Instead she looked round the room. Hal and Min’s kitchen was most un-kitchen-like, its atmosphere far removed from the spotless Formica of Greenbanks. Much, much nicer. In one corner rested a heap of leeks and potatoes, smuggled by Mac from the university vegetable garden. In another corner stood a moose’s head that stared at them glazedly. The walls were covered with scribbles upon which, the first time she’d been there, Laura had congratulated Hal and Min’s little daughter. She’d indignantly replied that they weren’t her drawings; she used her drawing book of course. They were Daddy’s.
A disembowelled bicycle, a hookah, a tuba … the room was hardly recognizable as a kitchen. Except, that is, for one neat row of baby food tins, a reminder of the orthodox needs of the baby to keep growing.
‘What did you do today?’
‘Oh, climbed a tree and had a snooze, did a bit of the old shit-shovelling, raced a couple of snails. They had amazing striped shells. A healthy sort of day.’
How he charmed her! How the whole household charmed her, so casual and disconnected from the outside world with all its silly rules and conventions. She looked at the scribbles on the wall. They were like children. Almost.
Mac was tapping his feet to some inner song. Never, she was discovering, did he ask her about her day, or her past, or anything like that. Never, it seemed, did he feel the need. He just smiled and drained his balloon glass and existed, amiably. How his very casualness tantalized! Here she was, longing to hold him; and there he was, slipping from her whenever she tried to get a grip.
Mac wiped his mouth. ‘Hal’s just got his dole,’ he said. ‘So it’s piss-up night tonight.’
‘Marvellous,’ said Laura untruthfully. The Heinz Vegetable Salad, combined with the piss-up, meant he wouldn’t eat the stew she’d made for tonight – but what a dull housewifely thought! She blushed. Never ever would she let him know that such terrible thoughts existed. He, who never showed the slightest urge, in contrast to her shamefully strong, shamefully ordinary impulse, to do any possessing at all.
Looking round at the communal belongings, at the car keys Hal always left dangling from the moose’s antlers for anyone to use, how she admired their ease, their lack of demands, the way everything was shared. Every day seemed a delightful surprise to be drifted through unhampered by dull things like jobs and routines and blush-making little awkwardnesses like buying a diaphragm. Unhampered, too, by the desire she was trying to hide of having Mac all to herself, in her own little room, surrounded by her own things and eating the stew she’d so painstakingly prepared.
Just as it took weeks to dare buy it, it took weeks to dare produce her little package, tell Mac about it and creep from the firelit bedroom into the chilly little bathroom on the landing.
The first time she dared struggle away at it with her clumsy hands, she felt a wave of nostalgia for the innocent, giggly days of ‘Young Marrieds’ when such things remained safely on the printed page. Easier on the page than all rubbery and springy in the fingers. Also, she felt a pang for Claire. Funny to want a sister now, of all times. But Claire would understand better than Mac.
And yet, when she grew better at it she got to enjoy her solitary bathroom preparations. They grew to be the one unfailing moment of order in the day, and she had to agree that, like Holly, she needed a little order, somewhere. She had more in common with Holly than she was prepared to admit.
eighteen
GEOFF’S NEXT HURDLE was Nikki and Yvonne. Claire couldn’t help thinking of them as a challenge, Nikki being so very pretty and Yvonne so extremely plain. Most people coped badly with this. Would he?
On this particular night Nikki happened to be in. From the sounds and scents a general overhaul of face, nails and body seemed to be taking place. As Claire ushered Geoff into the living-room Nikki’s gay singing voice could be heard through the bathroom door; fragrance wafted through the cracks.
‘That’s Nikki,’ Claire told him, gesturing towards the door. She led him to a chair. ‘And this is Yvonne.’
Yvonne, plump and sedate in her dressing-gown, sat on the sofa.
‘Pleased to meet you.’ She gave him a significant look. ‘Clary’s told me all about you.’
‘Really?’ asked Geoff. ‘Hope it wasn’t too bad.’
‘Oh no, I should say not.’ She gave him another meaningful look. ‘But you aren’t quite like I expected.’
Claire stiffened.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘Well, Claire said you looked a bit like Paul Newman. He’s my favourite actor, you know. He makes me feel all whoozy inside.’ She stopped her knitting and inspected him. ‘But you don’t look as much like him as all that. You have brown eyes, for a start. His are blue, a sort of deep gorgeous blue. Baby-blue eyes, that’s what I call them.’
Claire asked quickly: ‘Would you like something to drink?’
‘Let me.’ Yvonne put her knitting aside. ‘You two just stay there and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.’
‘Not tea,’ said Claire briskly. ‘It’s seven o’clock. How about some sherry, Geoff?’
Claire escaped into the kitchen. She could hear Yvonne’s voice carrying on in the living-room. Oh, to live alone! She scrabbled about in the cupboard, pushing aside the awful cracked coffee mugs. Panic-stricken, she could feel things slipping out of hand. And soon there’d be Nikki too.
She didn’t meet Geoff’s eye when she came back with the sherry glasses. She set them down. ‘Would you like some, Yvonne?’
‘You know me. I’m a good little girl.’ She put her knitting aside. ‘What I prefer is a nice cup of tea.’ At the door she stopped and wagged her finger roguishly. ‘I’ll leave you two alone then, but no hankey-pankey, mind.’
Rigid and wordless, Claire and Geoff sat still as she padded out and closed the door behind her. Hankey-pankey seemed a long way away. Claire stared into her little sherry glass and carefully lifted it to her lips. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him doing the same. They took a sip each. They put the glasses down. Then she stole him a glance.
He turned to her, raised his eyebrows and smiled conspiratorially. ‘Goodness,’ he said.
She went limp with relief. They were confederates. He smiled at her with a new intimacy and took her hand. ‘Here’s to us.’ With their free hands they clinked glasses.
They were just finishing their sherry when the singing stopped and Nikki came in.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Is that your super car outside?’
Geoff looked pleased.
‘I adore Lotuses,’ she said. ‘A touch of your actual class. What’s it do in top?’
‘Oh, about a hundred on a clear stretch.’
‘That’s cool. It’s an Elan, isn’t it?’
‘Right.’ He looked at her with respect. ‘You seem to know a bit about Lotuses.’
‘They’re so beautiful. When did you get it?’
‘Oh, when I was just starting college. I’d taken a holiday job …’
Claire listened. Never had she heard Geoff sound so interesting or talk so eagerly about himself. She had no idea he’d once had a holiday job in a Bird’s Eye factory. How did Nikki manage it?
‘… so I felt I could afford it,’ he finished. ‘An Elan, anyway. When I’m really flash I’ll buy a Europa.’
‘Nice, yes. But I love Elans. So light and powerfu
l to ride in.’
Claire tensed, waiting for him to say the obvious, which was ‘Well then, would you like a light and powerful ride in it?’ But thank goodness he didn’t.
‘So you’re Nikki,’ he said instead.
‘Excuse the hideous curlers. This is my homely evening.’
She rearranged herself in her chair, looking far from homely, and smiled at him. She was wearing a sort of towelling turban. Geoff offered her a cigarette; she took it; there was a tiny shift in the balance of the threesome as she and Geoff lit up and Claire didn’t.
‘What are you drinking?’ she asked, leaning over in a cloud of smoke to look in his glass.
‘Sherry.’
‘Goodness, how ladylike! Such a tiddly glass too. Fancy a whisky?’
Geoff brightened. ‘Well, now you mention it …’
She was wearing a thin silky caftan. They watched her as she shimmered out and returned a few moments later with a bottle, glasses, ice and a bowl of olives. She sat down and switched on the cosy table lamp. ‘On the rocks?’
There was a certain air about Nikki; half transient, as if she was going on somewhere exciting very soon – even in a turban she managed to convey that impression – and half intimate, as if just for the moment she couldn’t bear to drag herself away. Claire had always admired this.
‘Cheers,’ she said, smiling at him as Claire had smiled. They clinked glasses. She turned to Claire. ‘Sure you don’t want any?’
‘No, I don’t really like whisky, thanks.’ She wished she did; she felt prissy drinking sherry now, even though Geoff was pouring her out another.
Ice clinked; they sipped. Nikki smiled dreamily and said, almost to herself: ‘I just feel like going out tonight. So dreary staying in.’
‘That reminds me,’ said Geoff, turning to Claire. ‘We’d better get a move on.’
Claire sighed with relief. There had been no hesitation, no asking of her to join them or, worse still, no moment’s thoughtful silence as he worked out how he was going to ring up Nikki next time and suggest some little jaunt in the Lotus. Claire glanced at him; he looked particularly stolid. The danger was over; she knew it. They chatted, they finished their drinks. He was behaving perfectly; he was neither ignoring Yvonne, who was back with her tea now, nor becoming, well, rather silly with Nikki. Most people did both. He was just being polite; in a kind way to Yvonne, in an appreciative way to Nikki.
And in a few moments they would drive off, just the two of them, and drop in at a riverside pub for a drink and be at last alone. They hadn’t been alone at all yet, what with Holly and everything.
Then perhaps they’d go for a meal, the sort they should have had when they went to Eastbourne. And after that … sitting next to him, she didn’t dare look at his face, only at his hand, such a beautiful brown hand that was reaching out for an olive. She would do anything he wanted.
‘… you see,’ Yvonne was saying, ‘we have this kitty, and we all put in a pound a week, just for milk and things. But then, of course,’ she rolled an eye towards Nikki, ‘some of us aren’t here for breakfast and so that puts everything out.’
‘Sounds interesting,’ said Geoff gallantly.
‘I mean, I don’t like to interfere, but –’
The doorbell rang. Claire got up. Who could it be? She walked down the hall. No doubt some stud for Nikki.
‘Laura!’
‘Hello,’ said Laura. ‘I’ve brought the car back.’
‘Heavens, you’ve come all the way from Bristol? Just like that?’
‘I thought it was time for your turn.’
‘That’s nice, but how unexpected.’
They were in the living-room now. ‘Hi, Nikki and Yvonne,’ said Laura, ‘and hello, er …’
‘Geoff, this is Laura,’ said Claire. Laura looked at him; he must be Claire’s friend then, if she introduced him.
In the general pause that followed Claire thought, fleetingly, of her evening with Geoff. Much as she loved Laura, she thought of it. ‘Er, are you staying the night? I mean, can you?’
‘Yes please. That OK?’
‘Of course. You can sleep on the sofa.’ This romantic tête à tête business would just have to wait for another night. Never mind. Anyway, it was good to see Laura; interesting too, because there was something on her mind. This sudden arrival – even Laura wasn’t this impulsive – and now a restlessness about her, a fidgeting.
‘What on earth are you wearing?’ asked Nikki.
‘It’s a jumble sale dress,’ Laura answered. ‘5p, it cost. Isn’t it nice? I feel like somebody out of a Steinbeck book.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Nikki raised her eyebrows. ‘Anyway, tell me all about ravey Bristol.’
While she talked, Geoff looked at Laura. Yes, she was pretty, he could see that, but what a mess she’d made of herself! All that hair and that terrible droopy dress that made her look like a tramp. She ought to smarten herself up; make the most of herself, like Claire did.
Claire spoke. ‘Well, Geoff and I were just off for a drink.’ She stood up; she hesitated.
It was for Geoff to say, and he knew it. He was nothing if not polite. ‘Are you coming, Laura? I’m sure you and Claire have a lot to talk about.’ Hmm, if it wasn’t one sister it was the other. But still, if he were honest it wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
From her position wedged into the back of the Lotus, Laura inspected the two heads with interest. Obviously they knew each other quite well or they wouldn’t be sitting there in such a settled silence. But how well? And were they, perhaps, just shy? It must be recent, this Geoff business, or Claire would have written to her about it. He wasn’t bad-looking, she had to admit, but on the dull side. In that sports jacket and those dreadful cavalry twill trousers he looked like an advertisement for Player’s Senior Service. Manly and dependable; that scene.
They found the riverside pub and sat down with their drinks. A large number of people stared at Laura’s peculiar dress. She stared back at them, half gratified and half embarrassed. Such a bourgeois lot! But she wished she didn’t blush so damn easily.
‘Well,’ asked Claire. ‘What news? Still seeing Mac?’
‘Yes.’ A silence. Then Laura said: ‘I’m living with him.’
Claire’s eyes widened. ‘Really?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She tried to sound casual. ‘He moved into my room a day or so ago.’ There! Now she’d told her. She watched for Claire’s reaction. Geoff, she saw, was fiddling with his glass.
‘Goodness,’ said Claire. ‘I must meet him now.’
‘Do. Come down and visit me – us.’
‘He just moved into your room?’
‘Yep.’
Geoff felt dreadfully in the way. He pretended not to listen and gazed out over the glittering river.
Laura went on: ‘You see, everybody was chucked out of the house he lived in. They’d never paid the rent. So he came in with me.’
‘Simple as that?’
‘Yep,’ said Laura. Geoff, she noticed, was looking most disapproving. He was the sort that would, of course.
‘He simply dropped in,’ insisted Claire, ‘and sort of stayed?’
‘Just about.’ She picked at the holes in her sleeve. Actually, she had to admit that she was feeling rather uncomfortable. The ease with which it had happened had rather taken her by surprise. No discussion, no arrangements to speak of; he wasn’t that sort. One moment he wasn’t there and the next moment, amiable and plimsolled, there he was. Nice, of course; lovely, in fact. But almost too easy. And here was Claire harping on just that; irritating of her.
‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ Claire asked.
‘Oh, I don’t have to think about that yet,’ she said airily, studying her sleeve. ‘The present’s enough for me – us.’
‘Don’t be so silly, Laura. Lovely to have him, but are you sure you want to close yourself off? It’s mad in your first year. Think about all the other men you could be meeting. Such a waste.’
Laura
suddenly thought: Was it so easy because I was lonely?
‘Claire!’ she snapped. ‘Stop playing the big sister. I know what I’m doing.’
‘You’re talking in clichés.’
‘Well, it’s a clichéd situation, isn’t it. All this disapproval –’
‘It’s not disapproval. Don’t you understand one bit? I’m just worried about you closing the door on everyone else. Anyway, who’s supporting who?’
Laura fiddled with her sleeve again; the holes were getting bigger. ‘He is, of course,’ she said carefully. ‘His gardening didn’t pay enough, so he’s a bus conductor now.’
‘What?’ Geoff couldn’t stop himself.
‘A bus conductor.’
‘But you say he’s an undiscovered genius,’ said Claire. She looked at Laura; Laura’s face was closed and defiant. Geoff’s presence was making her take up a stance; she would be different if they were alone. Just for a moment Claire resented Geoff being there; then she thought of the candle-lit supper and resented Laura. It was just like Eastbourne all over again. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘let’s talk about something else.’
But everything else seemed rather flat after that and their voices kept trailing off in mid-sentence. In fact the evening didn’t last long, and after a swift and muted meal Geoff dropped them off at the flat.
Laura disappeared indoors; Claire lingered by the car.
Geoff spoke. ‘Well I never,’ he said. ‘Is your sister always like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Sort of rebellious. You know.’
‘Yes, she was always wilder than me. She does silly things sometimes.’
‘I can see that.’
Claire was stung. ‘What do you mean, “I can see that”?’
‘Oh. Well, I mean, rushing off with young men she hardly knows.’
‘How do you know she hardly knows him?’
He battled on. ‘If you’ve never met this Mac –’
‘That doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter if I’ve never met him. They’re obviously deeply, passionately in love.’