Ted accepted the mug, stretching his legs out in front of him, the way Oscar always did, although Ted’s legs only reached half the way. ‘I don’t know,’ he grinned at her. ‘I have to tell you there’s a nasty mood of mutiny in Tollymead that ill befits the Most Caring Village. I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the author of those entries if it all comes out.’
‘Really?’ Liberty said brightly. ‘You don’t think, then, that people will see this as a marvellous opportunity to practise all that Caring?’
‘Hardly,’ Ted laughed. ‘Things have changed, but not that much. I asked Oscar Brooke about it, by the way, but he said they had no idea at the Tribune who it was writing in. He did the award ceremony rather well, I thought.’
Of course he did, Liberty wanted to say. He makes love like a dream too, and he’s kind and clever and beautiful and sensitive and I love him, but because I’ve listened far too much to the likes of you I will most probably never feel his arms round me again.
She said, ‘Yes he did, didn’t he? Actually, there’s an ad in this week-end’s paper asking the writer of the Tollymead entries to call in at the Tribune offices, with a view to extending her contribution.’
Ted stood up. ‘Well if I was she, or he for that matter, I would keep my head down for a while. So anyway, you’re happy with Karen arriving on the sixteenth and you can meet her at the station?’
Liberty nodded agreement; she had a lot on her mind.
Oscar got up from his desk when his secretary announced there was a lady to see him about the Diary. Liberty stuck her head around the door and then, a little awkwardly, the rest of her followed. ‘Hello Oscar,’ she said, her voice unsteady.
He just looked at her for a moment, saying nothing, then he shook his head, smiling. ‘I have wondered for some time whether it was you.’ Seeing the look on her face he added quickly, ‘The ad was genuine, you know, we really want to talk to you.’
‘You sure?’
‘Promise,’ he said, slamming his fist across his heart. ‘Please, sit down.’ He indicated the visitor’s chair opposite his own and sat down himself. ‘So,’ he picked up a ruler and turned it round between his fingers, inspecting each side as if he expected to find something interesting. Of course he didn’t, so he put the ruler back, looking up at her.
If my love had a colour, Liberty thought, every breath I exhale would colour the atmosphere red.
‘So, all that talk about you having given up writing…’
Liberty shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well I had, really. The Diary was a bit of fun, or a straggly little life-line, whatever.’
‘Oh hell Liberty,’ Oscar had picked up the ruler again and he crashed it down on the desk. ‘This is ridiculous.’ He reached across and grabbed her hand. ‘I love you.’
‘Human beings are ridiculous,’ Liberty said softly. ‘But don’t you see, all we can do is to be ridiculous with as much grace as possible.’ She brought his hand up to her lips and across her cheek, holding it there for a moment before letting go. ‘You do understand, don’t you Oscar?’
He leant back in his chair, looking at her for a long moment, then with a sigh he said, ‘No Liberty, I can’t say that I do. But I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.’ He crossed one long leg over the other. ‘So, the Diary.’
Liberty smiled uncertainly. ‘The Diary, yes.’
‘How would you like to expand the entries and your cast,’ he paused and smiled up at her. ‘You made up most of them anyway, didn’t you? I mean Anne Havesham, we’ve had people looking out for her for months.’
Liberty shrugged her shoulders, an apology written on her face.
‘And the goody-two-shoes Phyllida Medley and Hester Scott OBE? Agnes Coulson and the couple that married, all your own creations too?’
‘Yes,’ Liberty whispered.
‘What about poor Tigger the gun dog and his owners?’
‘Well,’ Liberty looked down at her hands, ‘yes.’
‘That’s all right,’ Oscar was business-like. ‘In fact, it’s better for what we have in mind. We’re not after a Tollymead version of Jennifer’s Diary, more like a soap, Neighbours on the printed page, or The Archers, if that sounds better to you.’
‘No, Neighbours is fine, I’m not proud.’
‘There will have to be a trial run, but the plan is to move you away from the Village Diary section altogether, give you about two thirds of a column on page two. Reflect what goes on in the villages around here, but this time it should be all fiction, so you’ll be much less constrained. If you could have about four weeks’ worth to show Alistair Partridge, that’s my successor, when he comes back from holiday next week.’
‘I suppose a touch of Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City, is a little ambitious?’ Liberty had leant forward, her hands on the edge of the desk.
‘A little maybe.’ But he was smiling. ‘Then again, make it as good as you can.’
‘Should I have a strong narrator keeping it together, like in the Provincial Lady, do you think, or have an unobtrusive narrative voice?’ As she spoke she felt a faint tickle of excitement, feather-light but there, and gingerly she tested its worth. ‘You are quite sure you haven’t planned this all along to try to make me happy?’
He put his hand out and touched the puckered skin on her cheek. ‘Perish the thought.’ He grew serious again. ‘This might be a small-town newspaper and I might be leaving, but I have more respect for my profession, this paper, and most of all for you, to try that sort of thing. You can be quite sure that this offer, and remember it is only a trial run, is genuine and would have been made to anyone coming through this door this morning saying they had written those entries. Anyway, it was Alistair’s idea, not mine.’
For a moment she was quite content. OK, so unless someone came along one day and suggested she collected it all in a book, her work would be of the disposable kind, but was the baker any less valuable because his bread only lasted the day? She took Oscar’s hand and lifted it to her cheek, resting against it, thinking how easily she could have it all. She blinked to stop the tears, absent-mindedly rubbing her eyes with the back of his hand. Letting go, she stood up.
‘Thank you Oscar. It will be an excellent column.’
Oscar, too, stood up. ‘I expect it to be.’ He gave her a small smile. ‘So you’ll be happy now?’
‘Happy?’ She tried to smile back, but managed only a grimace. ‘Straight-backed, broken-hearted. That’s not happiness, but you can live.’ She studied every feature of his face, she looked at his hands and his arms, at his chest beneath the striped shirt and linen jacket, at his waist and hips.
He put out his hand as if to touch her, then let it drop to his side. ‘I’ll never stop loving you, Liberty,’ he said.
She took a step towards him and this time he pulled her close, and they kissed.
You can’t kiss for ever, so finally she freed herself and walked to the door. Maybe when the baby is grown up, she thought, maybe then? Thinking like that was the only way she could leave.
Acknowledgements
My warmest thanks to Diane Pearson, my editor, and everyone at Transworld, to Sarah Molloy, my agent, and to my husband, Richard Cobbold, for all their help and support in the course of writing and editing this novel.
Many thanks too, to Martin Roberts and his staff for their advice on herbicides.
About the Author
MARIKA COBBOLD was born in Sweden and is the author of six other novels: Guppies for Tea, selected for the WH Smith First Novels Promotion and shortlisted for the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award; Frozen Music; The Purveyor of Enchantment; Shooting Butterflies; Aphrodite’s Workshop for Reluctant Lovers and, most recently, Drowning Rose. Marika Cobbold lives in London.
By the Same Author
Guppies for Tea
The Purveyor of Enchantment
Frozen Music
Shooting Butterflies
Aphrodite’s Workshop for Reluctant Lovers
Drownin
g Rose
First published in Great Britain by Black Swan Books in 1994
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Marika Cobbold 1994
The right of Marika Cobbold to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 1 4088 2896 0
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