She looked only momentarily surprised. She took a sip of her drink. “Kev? More ’n twenty years now.”
“You never said . . .”
“How he died? Gangrene.” And when she saw his expression of surprise and horror, “It was his gut. He had a condition he didn’t take care with, seeds and such getting trapped in these odd little sacs that formed in his gut. They got themselves infected. He was supposed to take care with what he ate and he never did and it killed him.”
“Christ,” he said.
“No one on God’s green earth should have to die like that. It took months as they carted him in and out of operating theatres, removing more and more of him, but still it came back.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-seven when he died.”
“Leaving you—”
She reached for his arm to stop him going further. “Alastair, it’s no matter. I mean, it is, but we all face something.” And then she added, “How’s Caroline coping? I’ve not seen her at the bakery in a good long time.”
Since Sharon was the one to introduce the subject, Alastair decided that no disloyalty was involved in revealing a few facts. More than three years since Will’s death and she’d not come back from it, he said quietly. She eats, she reads, and she watches the telly, he said, full stop. His fear—one among many that he had—was that she’d eat herself straight into the grave. Her two diversions were the Women’s League in Shaftesbury and her work for Clare Abbott. Praise God for that last as Alastair thought it was saving her life. It was, he admitted, saving his.
Sharon looked surprised. He realised that he’d said too much, his tongue too oiled by the drink. He looked away, out towards the fields where a flock of sheep grazed placidly, plump white clouds on a sky of green. Sharon said she was sorry to hear of his struggles and she added, “Especially that last bit. You’re a hard worker and . . . Well, I’m sorry for whatever it is that’s going on between you and Caroline.”
“Nothing’s going on, truth to tell,” he said with a rueful laugh. “Not in some time.” He didn’t add the rest: that long before Will had died had come a cooling in the relationship he had with his wife. The heady passion he’d felt for her and she for him was not, of course, something that could be sustained. But he’d reckoned on it altering to warmth, affectionate couplings in a marital bed blessed with more children, growing understanding, and loving commitment. He’d come to understand, however, that Caro had no interest in such things once the initial flames of her lust had cooled. He’d finally reckoned, in fact, that she’d never felt those initial flames at all.
He said nothing of this to Sharon and he swore that he wouldn’t. Not so much because it constituted a betrayal of his troubled wife as because of what it said about him. Doubtless, her question to him would be “But why do you stay?” to which he would have to admit that Caroline’s need for him—sworn to in a thousand different ways—allowed him to feel what he’d never felt before: a person of significance in the eyes of someone else.
He felt that Sharon was looking at him, so he finally forced himself to meet her eyes. She didn’t look pitying as he’d thought she might at what he’d revealed. Instead she looked puzzled and, perhaps, rather intrigued.
“Now that’s a real shame” were her words.
BISHOPSGATE
LONDON
As luck would have it, Barbara was held up at work, and she didn’t manage to reach Bishopsgate Institute until a quarter past eight. It wasn’t too far along the street beyond a grimly institutional-looking police station, and a poster board just inside the door indicated the direction she was supposed to take to get to the event. This was being held on one of the upper floors of the building, along a corridor displaying a stunning array of Art Deco tiles in rich greens and mild yellows.
Barbara followed the noise: laughter, outcries of protest, and an amplified female voice whose scratchiness told Barbara she was hearing the well-known feminist herself. She saw double doors opened along the corridor, and she went towards them to find herself at the entry to a very large room with a parquet floor and bright white walls, not unlike a dance studio. Harsh fluorescent lights illuminated it, folding metal chairs provided seating that was mercifully padded in red upholstery, and at the far end of the room a dais elevated the speaker, who was at that moment striding back and forth in front of a lectern, microphone in hand.
Barbara had never seen Clare Abbott in person. Now, she concluded that the woman was quite striking, but not for reasons that anyone might have considered congruent with the accepted image of femininity. Thus, Barbara liked her at once. Broad-shouldered, solid, and tall, she favoured head-to-toe tailored but decidedly crumpled black linen with a single stripe of crème offset from shoulder to hem of the shirt she wore. Its collar was half up and half down but not as a casual fashion statement. Rather it appeared to have been designed that way and it disappeared into disheveled shoulder-length hair of a grey that was as dull as a rainy November sky. She wore heavy framed spectacles that, as she spoke, she repeatedly pushed up the bridge of her nose or removed to wave in emphasis. From the sound she was producing as she tramped back and forth across the dais, Barbara reckoned she was also wearing military boots beneath her trousers.
The crowd was mostly women. They appeared largely to comprise office workers of middle age and younger, some of them accompanied by men who looked dazed, defiant, or dead uncomfortable. It was an SRO situation, so Barbara positioned herself at the back of the room. There, a flashily-outfitted, overweight woman of an interesting mixed ethnicity and too much jewellery was getting in the way of a harried bookseller and fussing with a display of books while not too far from her and leaning against the wall another woman in black appeared to be a relative of the author, so similar was she to Clare Abbott in build and appearance. She was, however, a far trendier version of the writer since her salt-and-pepper hair was styled short and carefully disarranged in an artful manner and her black and grey clothing did not appear to have been purchased in nearby Wentworth Street. She was holding in her arms what seemed to be a furry mixed-breed dog of tan and black, wearing—for some reason and despite the heat—a bright green vest. She was also watching the writer with a smile on her face while the other, flashier woman glanced up from her book fussing with an expression that indicated the sooner they were finished with this business, the supremely better.
Barbara couldn’t blame her. It was boiling hot in the room which, typical to London, had no air conditioning. There were also no windows. Laughably, a single fan had been provided. It stirred the tepid air near the book table, but that was it. Yet no one appeared to be in a hurry as Clare Abbott fielded their questions.
She answered the marriage-and-children questions first with yes and no. She had been married, but she’d never had children. Her first had been a starter marriage of nineteen months when she and the husband were twenty-one—“Good God, we were babies!”—and her second had been a longer one ten years later. When someone enquired whether her new and controversial book might be the result of those failed marital relationships, she was as unoffended as she’d been on Radio 4. Her reply, “One might argue that if one considers the end of a marriage some sort of personal failure instead of the outcome of arriving at a mutual decision based upon an understanding of differences and an agreement about the future. My first husband and I awakened one morning and realised that aside from an Oxford education, we had nothing in common but a predilection for pizza. As for my second husband, he wished to take a posting in the Middle East. I did not wish to live in a land where women are forced to wear black bedsheets in the roaring heat. In both cases, we parted as friends.”
And if one party wishes to end a marriage while the other doesn’t? someone asked.
If the marriage’s end comes about as the result of an affair? someone else enquired.
And then in rapid succession from others:
Isn
’t our job on earth to raise our own awareness and to develop as spiritual beings in peaceful interaction with other spiritual beings?
Don’t you believe there is a greater plan, one designed by God?
Why have males and females of a species at all if we’re not intended to join together for procreation?
The writer took all the questions in her stride. She remained unruffled and clearly unrepentant of her philosophical positions. Finally, at a signal from the woman at the back who looked like her sister, Clare Abbott said in conclusion, “I’m being told by my editor that it’s time to sign books, but let me say this. I’m not telling any of you to leave your marriage or even to avoid marriage in the first place. I’m asking you to examine your beliefs and to determine which of them come not from your sense of who you are but instead from an urging from outside forces as to who you ought to be. Marriage itself is all well and good if you like that sort of thing—regular sex with the same partner and a familiar face at the breakfast table. But to depend upon it for anything at all except familiarity is lunacy. It’s fine to want a home and traditions and establishing a history with someone. It’s fine and normal to like regular sex and to wish to have it with one person only or at least serially. But these things cannot be relied upon to fulfil an individual, which is why silly books end with the happily-ever-after bit and honest books end with Anna Karenina depositing herself on the railway tracks. Let us not forget that Romeo and Juliet killed themselves, Guinevere and Lancelot destroyed Camelot, and Madame Butterfly went for seppuku. There’s a reason for all of that and wise is the woman who works out what it is. Open your eyes because there is no happy ending unless you work like the devil to reach something you can label that way. Which is the point of Looking for Mr. Darcy.” She smiled and added, “Which I encourage you to buy in multiple copies. Now, let me sign some books so that we can decamp and have a cold cider at the nearest pub.”
With applause, people began to rise and collect their belongings. The sister-like woman whom Clare Abbott had identified as her editor set her dog on the floor and called out, “We’ll form a queue along that wall. I promise you that, even if I have to muzzle her, Clare will not be allowed to do anything other than sign your books, so you’ll be out of here in less than an hour,” while the jewellery-wearing woman behind the book table ripped open a package of Post-its as Clare Abbott worked her way through the crowd. She paused here and there to greet well-wishers, to laugh boisterously at something someone said, to shake hands with a stranger, or to accept someone’s business card, which she slipped into the pocket of her trousers. She finally arrived at the signing table, where she threw herself into the chair provided as the crowd surged forward to purchase her book.
Had it not been for her uncomfortable discussion with Dorothea Harriman, Barbara might have left at that point. But that discussion, in combination with the Radio 4 interview, in combination with what she’d heard of this presentation at Bishopsgate Institute, prompted Barbara to make her way into the queue. She had no intention of purchasing the book for herself. She wasn’t much of a reader beyond dipping into the sort of romance novels that would likely make Clare Abbott’s hair fall out. But it was clear to her that Dorothea Harriman’s manner of thinking needed some serious adjustment, and Looking for Mr. Darcy appeared to be just the ticket to make all the adjustments that were necessary.
The signing was a well-organised affair. The author took her place at the far end of the book table while the flashy woman handed over the Post-its to the editor who, dog at her side, moved along the queue and wrote on the Post-its the names that people wished to have inscribed in their purchased copies of Looking for Mr. Darcy. The bookseller dealt efficiently with selling the books, but it soon appeared that the editor’s promise to have them all out of there in less than an hour was not going to be fulfilled.
Too many members of the audience wanted to talk to Clare Abbott, yet no one seemed to mind this particularly as all round Barbara eager conversations appeared to indicate that the writer was well able to provoke discussion. So the queue of women and the rare, brave man inched forward. Books sold briskly. The room began to feel more and more like a sauna. The book-selling woman attempted to urge people along in as courteous a manner as she could, but it was evident that the writer was not about to be hurried.
Barbara was glad that she’d thought to bring a change of clothes to work that day. At least she wasn’t sweltering in tights, skirt, and an Ardery-approved high-necked and long-sleeved blouse. She’d ducked into the ladies and switched her garments for the evening, going for her usual tee-shirt, draw-string trousers, and comfortable trainers. So while it could not be said that she was pleasantly cool, at least she wasn’t feeling the need to divest herself of heavier clothing in a manner that was likely to get her arrested.
It was her clothing that turned out to be the key to her conversation with the feminist. Fifty-four minutes after the signing had commenced, Barbara had managed to work her way to the book table and to purchase a copy of Looking for Mr. Darcy. She’d fixed onto the volume the Post-it with Dorothea’s name neatly printed on it when she heard “On the eighth day God created bacon,” spoken in Clare Abbott’s scratchy voice. This was followed by her raucous laugh, her question “Where did it come from? I must have one,” which was followed by Barbara’s realisation that the writer was reading the front of her tee-shirt.
Clare Abbott’s flashy companion glanced over and murmured something to the writer, which the writer ignored. She said instead to Barbara, “You must tell me where you bought that because I intend to wear one next time I have to face my doctor for the yearly lecture about my cholesterol. My primary weakness is clotted cream, though. Can I get one with clotted cream instead of bacon? Where did it come from?”
“Camden Lock Market,” Barbara told the writer. “I expect they’ll do you clotted cream if they don’t have it already. They did this one for me.”
“It was your creation?”
“What it says? Yes. For my sins,” Barbara told her.
“I do love it,” she said. “Tell me where in the market. I’m absolutely serious. I must have one.”
“Well, it’s nearer the Stables than the lock. But it’s open only Sundays, so it takes two Sundays since they have to print it and—”
“Oh God. Camden Lock on Sunday. Oh well. There are times when one must prevail over one’s loathing of shopping hordes and this could be one of those times. C’n you write down where I might find the stall so I don’t actually have to battle my—”
“Clare, darling . . .” The flashy woman cast a hurry-along-please look at Barbara.
“I’ll get one for you, if you like,” Barbara told the writer quickly. “If you actually want one. It’s not a problem as I live near the market.”
“That’s more than kind, but I can’t ask you—”
“Clare . . .”
The writer acknowledged her companion at the table, saying, “Yes, yes, Caroline. I know you’re doing your best to keep me on task. I’m about to obey. You’ve got one of my cards, haven’t you? Will you hand me one?”
Caroline pulled a slim silver case from a pocket in the summery tunic she wore over her bulk, and from this she extricated a business card. She handed it to Clare. Clare passed it to Barbara, saying, “It’s got both London and Shaftesbury on it. Use either address. Caroline, what about twenty-five pounds as well as I’ve nothing on me and I can’t have this kind woman . . . I’m terribly sorry. I haven’t asked your name.” She looked at the book Barbara had handed over for signature. “Dorothea, is it?” she said, reading the Post-it.
“Barbara Havers,” Barbara told her. “That’s a gift. The book, I mean. Here . . .” And Barbara rooted round in her shoulder bag to bring forth her own card, which she handed over.
Clare Abbott took it from her with thanks, sliding it among the others that Barbara had seen people hand to her during the signing. F
or her part, she slid Clare Abbott’s card into her trouser pocket and promised her that the tee-shirt she wanted would soon be in the post. She demurred the twenty-five pounds from Caroline, saying, “It’ll be on me,” as she went on her way.
She didn’t get far. She’d just reached the corridor and was heading towards the stairway when she heard, “Excuse me . . . ?” behind her. She turned to see Caroline following her.
“Caroline Goldacre,” the woman said by way of introducing herself. “I’m Ms. Abbott’s personal assistant.” She looked a bit hesitant as she said, “I don’t know how else to say this, but if I don’t keep my eyes and ears open, she gets herself into all sorts of trouble.”
Barbara wasn’t sure what to make of this, so she waited for more.
“I must get back to her, so just to be brief: May I ask you to return her card to me please? She’s terribly impulsive when it comes to meeting people. She gets wound up and makes promises that she can’t possibly keep and I’m the one who has to sweep up after her. I’m awfully sorry. I feel wretched about it, but it’s my job.”
“Oh. The tee-shirt thing . . . ?”
Caroline made a regretful face. “You’re not to take her at all seriously. And you’re definitely not to go to the trouble. It’s just her way. She loves meeting people and chatting to them but afterwards . . . ? She can’t remember a thing and when the phone starts ringing or the front bell goes, she wants to know why I didn’t stop her before she even got started. So if you wouldn’t mind . . .”
Barbara shrugged. She dipped into her trousers and brought forth the business card. As she handed it over, she asked curiously, “What d’you do with all the cards she collects from people, then, during one of these events?”
“She gives them to me to bin on the way out,” Caroline said frankly as she put Clare’s card into her pocket. “It’s just the way she is.”
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