by Rachel Hore
‘I hope it’s nothing serious?’
‘Nobody quite seems able to tell me,’ he said, looking maudlin.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Isabel repeated.
‘It’s a sort of distress, I think. We had some disappointing news last year. Apparently we’re unlikely to be able to have children. It’s terrible to feel one’s responsible for another’s unhappiness.’ He set his glass down very deliberately on the table and stared into the distance.
‘That’s so sad,’ Isabel murmured, a little surprised that he’d told her something so personal.
Stephen seemed to regret it too, for he roused himself and said gruffly, ‘I hope you can keep that to yourself.’
‘Of course,’ she assured him. They were silent for a long moment.
‘So,’ he said, regarding her thoughtfully, ‘when are you next seeing Morton?’ There was something about his tone that she didn’t like. Was he laughing at her?
‘I’ve no idea,’ she replied as coolly as she could. ‘I can see you don’t approve.’
‘I wouldn’t dare say whom you should or shouldn’t see,’ he said. ‘Just that if I were your father, I’d advise you not to rush into things.’
The mention of her father immediately incensed her. ‘But you’re not,’ she retorted.
‘No, indeed I’m not. But I have seen a little more of life than you.’
She thought about this and decided it was true. ‘What do you have against Hugh?’ she asked him finally.
‘Nothing, really. I can hardly say I know the man. Forget it, please.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Look, I’m afraid I must get going,’ he said. ‘Shall I find you a taxi?’
‘No, thanks, I’ll get the bus.’
They parted at Oxford Street and she watched him stumble off to hail a taxi.
As the bus rattled its way north, she puzzled over their conversation. Under his confident, engaging manner, there was much to suggest that Stephen McKinnon was a deeply unhappy man.
‘Tell me about the marriage,’ Berec begged as he stirred sugar into his coffee. He and Isabel were sitting in their favourite café in Percy Street one lunchtime the following week. ‘Audrey, was she radiant, as you English like to say?’
‘Very radiant, Berec,’ Isabel told him. ‘Such a beautiful dress. And the flowers, they came from the Fosters’ garden. Narcissi, spring lilies, the scent was simply glorious.’
‘And the poor Honorable Anthony?’
‘Not poor at all. He looked very pleased with himself. But I don’t know how he’s going to manage those relations of Audrey’s. There are so many of them.’
‘Married alive, is he? Poor man indeed.’
Isabel laughed. She had travelled down with Vivienne’s party on the train, and they’d both enjoyed the day, but it was an unusually lavish affair for the times and she was somewhat wistful that she would never be able to have a wedding like that. Not that, at the moment, she had marriage in prospect at all, she checked herself. She sighed. The office had seemed very quiet today with Audrey away and the excitement over.
‘You know, Isabel, I hardly see you these days,’ Berec was complaining. ‘And Gregor and Karin, they’re asking for you.’
‘How are they both?’ Isabel asked. ‘I should like to see them soon.’
‘They wish me to bring you to supper one evening. Karin has been suffering from her old trouble, the rheumatic fever, you know, but her spirits are improved, I think. Especially since Gregor has found a job as porter at a hospital, which is very good news.’
What a comedown from being a doctor this must be. But at least it would mean regular money.
‘And you, you are enjoying yourself ?’ Berec asked her. She could not mistake the twinkle in his eye and smiled back mischievously.
‘Oh, Berec, yes. I must thank you a thousand times for getting me this job.’
He waved the gratitude away as though it were a fly. ‘You know I didn’t mean the job, but never mind. I saw right from the start that it would suit you.’
‘You did, didn’t you? It was very clever of you.’
‘I wanted to help you, so bright and impetuous you were, arriving like that at your aunt’s. I liked that. You’d run away from home to find your fortune. Like in the fairy stories.’
‘And you were my fairy godmother.’
The twinkly eyes creased up in laughter. ‘Your fairy godfather. That’s right. Penelope was the godmother, I think.’
‘I suppose she was in a way. I haven’t seen her for a long time. Have you?’
‘Not very much, no.’
‘I will, I must do.’ She felt a mixture of guilt and reluctance about this. Guilt because she knew she owed Penelope the courtesy of a visit, and reluctance because Penelope, though generous in Isabel’s hour of desperate need, had not adopted the role of affectionate aunt. Reginald Dickson, her aunt’s amour, had been discouraging of that. She noted that despite him being McKinnon & Holt’s new backer, she hadn’t ever seen Reginald. He didn’t interfere as Redmayne Symmonds used to do, but seemed entirely happy for Stephen to conduct all business as he deemed best.
‘I suppose Penelope is still with Reginald,’ she thought to ask now.
‘Yes,’ Berec said shortly. ‘I wish I could say I warm to the fellow.’
‘He is a cold fish,’ Isabel agreed. ‘Do you think she’ll marry him?’
‘Not while he’s married to someone else,’ Berec said, crushing his cigarette butt into a small ashtray. ‘And even then, I don’t know. I remember her telling me one marriage was enough for a lifetime. And Reginald, I believe he likes things exactly as they are.’
‘I would hate that,’ Isabel said wonderingly. ‘If I loved somebody, I would want to be with them all the time.’
Berec began searching for coins in his wallet and she couldn’t see his expression. ‘It is right that you think like that, Isabel,’ he said, ‘and I wish above all that you find happiness, but please remember it is not possible for everybody. For some, love is on the ration, for others it is denied altogether. Never allow your own good fortune to blind you to this.’
‘You sound so serious, Berec,’ she said, hesitant. Indeed it was the most serious thing Berec had ever said to her, and for a moment she couldn’t think how to respond. Had something happened to him? Her thoughts flew to Myra, but she had long learned not to ask about Myra; the question appeared to disconcert Berec and she respected his privacy. She’d once wondered if he loved Penelope, but had concluded that if he ever had, he did so no longer. He only ever spoke of her with gratitude and the warmth of friendship.
‘I did not mean to frighten you,’ he said. ‘Especially when I see that you are so happy.’ His eyes were dancing with mischief, and she felt her face grow hot. ‘No, I am not intruding,’ he added hastily. ‘But I can see you don’t have much time for your old friend Berec now.’
‘Berec, don’t be silly, I always have time for you. And you must let me pay today, really I’m the one with the job, remember. Here, take this.’ She pushed a note towards him.
‘Ah, and I was going to ask you for a book from the office. I can’t do that if you pay for me.’
‘Yes, of course you can. Was it the Russian poet? Stephen hopes you’ll review to meet you beautiful the co that somewhere. If you come back to the office now, I’ll give you a copy.’
Later that afternoon, she remembered their conversation about Penelope and, on impulse, tried to telephone her. There was nobody at home.
‘I’ve bought a car.’ Hugh’s voice down the telephone was triumphant.
‘We’ve got a crossed line,’ Isabel said. A woman’s voice kept shrilling, ‘Hello, hello, Bernard?’ Then came a click and silence. ‘Are you still there, Hugh?’ Isabel asked. ‘For a moment I thought you said you’d bought a car.’
‘I did, and I have. Will you come for a drive, Sunday? I can pick you up around ten.’
‘Yes,’ she said at once, ‘I’d love that.’ When he’d rung off she stood for a while in a
transport of excitement. She was going out with him for a whole day! Did this mean their relationship was becoming serious? Perhaps she was reading too much into it. Oh blow, if only she was more sophisticated, like Audrey. Audrey would know how to handle things. She sighed and went off to look out something she might wear. The old gold dress with the sweet round collar, perhaps. Audrey had complimented her on that.
Sunday was blustery, and puffs of greyish cloud charged through a misty sky. She hoped the rain would hold off. The car was a dear, small and painted red, with a detachable roof. It was far from new but it spelled freedom, and once they were through the suburbs and picking up speed, its creaks and vibrations were hardly noticeable above the roar of the engine. Hugh drove fast, but well, and the quaint Surrey villages whipped by. They stopped for an early lunch in a pub in Haslemere, then went on again, reaching Brighton mid-afternoon. He parked the car by the seafront.
Isabel paddled in a freezing sea whilst Hugh, who declined even to remove his shoes, loitered on the stony beach. After she’d dried her feet on his handkerchief they visited the pier, where half a dozen children licking ice creams were watching a desultory Punch and Judy. The spectacle became more interesting when it was heckled by a posse of youths and the puppeteer shambled out of the tent and shouted at them to go away. ‘Old ’itler should ’ave seen to the likes of you,’ he cried, shaking his fist in a way that bested his efforts with Punch.
Hugh laughed and steered Isabel away. They strolled to the end of the pier and stood for a while watching seagulls circle and dive in the wake of a pleasure boat crossing the bay.
‘Why do they do that?’ Isabel asked. Her heart ached with the sense of his closeness.
‘People throw food, I suppose, or perhaps the propeller turns up fish for them. They’re scavengers, aren’t they? They live off us, that’s why they prosper.’
She thought the birds looked graceful at a distance, but harsh and malevolent up close. A sharp wind had blown up; she shivered and wrapped her coat more tightly around her. ‘You’re cold,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘I’m sorry. Let’s get some tea.’
They walked back down the pier and found the last free table in the fug of a crowded café where the waitress brought tea and buttered toast and they sat quietly listening to the conversations around them. Once, Hugh smiled at something an old woman said, took out a small notebook and wrote in it, then put it away without a word. He seemed to be brooding on some matter that might have nothing to do with Isabel or the café or the moment, she couldn’t tell. Sometimes he would disappear inside himself, or so she fancied. She found herself starting to panic. Perhaps she didn’t matter to him particularly. Perhaps she’d read him wrongly, after all.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked after a time, feeling a little ignored.
‘What? Yes, of course,’ he replied rather shortly. ‘Sorry, I was thinking.’
‘I noticed,’ she said, trying not to show her hurt. ‘I was worried I’d upset you.’
‘My dear girl.’ He reached out and grasped her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers. ‘You mustn’t think that. How could you possibly upset me?’ His expression was so tender she could hardly speak.
‘I don’t know,’ she managed to say. ‘I wasn’t sure, that was all.’
And now the moment had come, she didn’t know what to do with it. There were things she wanted to ask, but couldn’t – not here.
‘I feel sometimes,’ she murmured, ‘just sometimes, that I don’t know where I am with you.’
‘Isabel, isn’t it obvious? Can’t you see how I feel? You do trust me, don’t you?’
Trust.
And now, surrounded by all these strangers, she was horrified to feel her eyes prickle with tears. She reached for her handbag, but Hugh was already pulling out his handkerchief, showering sand everywhere. He dabbed her cheeks with a clean corner.
‘Can we go?’ she asked. People were starting to look at her curiously.
‘Of course.’ He helped her on with her coat and cast a few coins on the table as they left.
Outside on the seafront, there was a sense of doubt about the daylight. Dark clouds had amassed overhead. Sharp raindrops stung their faces. An imposing ochre-plastered building stood opposite, bordered by a covered colonnade, and he hurried her across the road and into its shelter. At one end was a sort of recess where they were protected from public view. There it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him finally to pull her close. Their mouths met in hot, yearning kisses. His lips were soft and tasted of cinnamon.
‘My dear girl, I didn’t mean to make you cry,’ he whispered in her ear, and when she looked into his face she saw deep concern, and for some reason this moved her deeply. How close she felt to him now, and powerful too. She was awed that she could have this effect on him. She did finally what she had longed to do for so long, reached up and traced the shape of his mouth with her fingers, then brushed his rough cheek with her hand, then she kissed him again. And for now, anyway, all the things that had bothered her no longer seemed to matter.
They stood together kissing for a long time whilst the rain fell in earnest, then watched as the buildings around them and the pier turned to silhouettes and the cloud light ripened to deep gold over the sea.
‘We ought to go, I suppose,’ Hugh murmured eventually. ‘Can you manage to run in those shoes?’
‘I’ll try.’
Arms still round each other, they dashed through the rain, laughing, stumbling over puddles, along the shiny promenade to the car.
Driving back to London, the weather heightened their new closeness. Hugh hunched over the wheel trying to see the road, the windscreen wipers thrashing uselessly against the flood pouring down the glass. With the car heater turned up high, it felt terribly safe and intimate to Isabel.
They had just cleared the summit of the South Downs and were racing for home on an open road when an ominous thudding noise started up and the car began to list.
‘The front tyre’s gone, dammit,’ Hugh groaned, clutching the steering wheel with both hands to steady the vehicle. He slowed down and managed to pull the car into the side of the road, bumping it up onto a grass verge, then got out and examined the wheel on his side.
‘Flat as a pancake,’ he called to Isabel, looking mournful. ‘I’m very sorry, but you’re going to have to get out.’ She opened her door to find a ditch full of nettles.
‘It’ll have to be your side,’ she said, but he’d already gone to open the bonnet and didn’t hear. She climbed across and went to join him.
‘Why not stand under those trees while I sort this out,’ Hugh told her as he began to unclip the spare wheel.
‘No, I’ll help.’ The rain was already soaking through her coat.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not strong enough. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.’
‘I’m sure there’s something I can do.’
‘You can watch for other vehicles then,’ he said, rolling the wheel to where he needed it.
She settled for passing him the jack out of the toolbag and gathering up the bolts when he took the flat wheel off and then substituted it with the other.
‘Show me your hands,’ she commanded when he’d finished, and with an old rag from the boot scrubbed the worst of the oil off them. They climbed back into the car half-drowned, and at once rich smells of wet wool, earth and leather mingled with the usual stink of petrol and upholstery.
After several tries the engine caught and they smiled delightedly at one another. ‘Bingo!’ he cried, then turned in his seat and embraced her. ‘You’re a brick, you darling girl, you know that?’ And a feeling of deep joy washed over her.
It was late in the evening when he pulled up outside her house, and both of them were exhausted.
‘It’s been the most wonderful day,’ she said.
‘It has, despite everything.’ He took her in his arms and kissed her. ‘I’d better not risk turning off the engine.’ She opened the car door. ‘I�
��ll telephone you,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’
She didn’t hear anything from him the following day, nor the day after that, though in the office she answered the phone with a little pang of expectation every time it rang. At home in the evening she sat mutinous when any of the other lodgers were on a call in case he was trying to get through. Why didn’t he ring? First she was puzzled, then hurt, then despairing. Trust me, he had told her. How could she, when he left her hanging on like this?
Her thoughts flew everywhere. Perhaps there was something wrong. Perhaps she’d misjudged him or offended him in some way. And yet he’d made her feel so sure of him. Once or twice she dialled the number of his flat, but nobody answered. Where was he? She whipped herself up into a maelstrom of anger and longing, first one and then the other.
After three days that dragged endlessly, she walked into the office on Thursday morning and picked up her ringing phone.
‘Isabel?’ It was him. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. ‘Hello?’ he said.
‘Hello, Hugh.’
Hearing the dullness in her voice he said, ‘You’re angry with me.’
‘No,’ she lied.
‘You are angry – I can tell. Look, I’m in Suffolk, but coming back later. Are you free this evening? I’d like you to have dinner with me.’
‘I’m busy.’ It happened to be true. She was going with Berec to have supper with Gregor and Karin. Part of her wanted to say she’d cancel this, but her dignity would not allow it. He must be made to wait.
Tomorrow then? Dammit, you are angry. I don’t blame you.’ She was silent. ‘I’ve been here all week, Isabel. My mother’s been in hospital.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, instantly concerned. ‘What’s been the matter?’
‘She had a bad asthma attack. Her housekeeper called me on Monday, very distressed. I got a train immediately. It’s been an anxious few days, but she’s much better now. I’m sorry I haven’t telephoned. I left my address book behind. I tried you at the office yesterday lunchtime, left a message with what’s-his-name, that gawky lad?’