Rosie Thomas 3-Book Collection

by Rosie Thomas

  To the bored clerk at the other end of the line she recited the details of her request while he took them down infuriatingly slowly. Helen breathed deeply in an effort to keep her patience. With her thumbnail she picked at a blister of paint on the coinbox and repeated her account number yet again.

  ‘And you wish to close this account, Miss Brown?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And the credit balance?’

  ‘Will be transferred to the reopened account at my home town. Could you give me the exact figure for the balance, please?’

  The question was no more than a formality. Of necessity Helen always knew exactly how much money she had. At last the clerk came back with the answer.

  ‘With today’s deposit your balance is eight hundred and sixty-two pounds, seventy-two pence.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Eight hundred and sixty …’

  ‘Yes, I did hear, but there’s some mistake. I have only about a hundred and ten pounds.’

  ‘That was before today’s deposit.’

  Once again Helen drew a deep breath.

  ‘I haven’t made a deposit. There must be a mistake.’

  After another long pause a different, slightly older-sounding voice came on the line.

  ‘Is there a problem here, Miss Brown?’

  ‘Not really. Just that a large sum of money has been wrongly credited to my account.’

  ‘Not wrongly. I have the slip here. It gives your name, address and account number quite clearly. And the seven-fifty was quite definitely paid in, in fifties. The only thing that I can’t make out is the signature. It’s one of those that starts with a big loop and goes on in a straight line with a few bumps in it. Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘No,’ said Helen, utterly bewildered.

  ‘Nor to me,’ said the voice, with a trace of irritation. ‘Usually we only get complaints when it’s the other way round.’

  ‘Just leave things as they are for the time being, then,’ Helen said as calmly as she could and slowly replaced the receiver.

  Who? Who could have given her so much money? And done it with such surgical coolness that she had never touched it, just found it magically lying in her account?

  Helen thought back to the shame in Oliver’s face this morning as he had failed to meet her eyes. It must be Oliver. Oliver, trying to make some kind of amends. Oliver was the only person she had ever seen unthinkingly spending a hundred pounds on a single lunch. Oliver would be able to command that kind of money.

  He had wanted to help her in some way, as unobtrusively as he could, and this was his way of doing it. What a collection of contradictions he is, thought Helen, before a host of questions came crowding in on her.

  She must give the money back, of course, but how could she do it without embarrassment? Without answering tact with bristling pride? Evidently he had found her account and number without difficulty, but however could she find his so that she could slide the money back? She winced at the thought of pressing the pile of notes back into his hands.

  What else could she do? Push it under his door? Leave it in his pigeonhole? Write him a cheque with a grateful note? Or wrap it round a brick and lob it through his window? A spurt of laughter bubbled up inside Helen. After the pressures of the day this last shock had left her feeling slightly hysterical.

  Another uncharacteristic idea popped into her head. A drink, she told herself. That’s what you need. I’m sure Chloe’s got a bottle in her room that she’d be glad to share.

  Chloe called out reluctantly in answer to her knock. ‘Ye-es?’

  A moment later Helen saw why. Her hair was wound on heated rollers and her face was a stiff white mask. The rest of her was swathed in a vivid kimono. Through the face mask Chloe attempted a tiny grin and beckoned her inside.

  ‘All stops being pulled out, as you can see. It’s dinner with Stephen on High Table tonight.’

  Helen nodded. She wished her friend wasn’t so interested in Stephen Spurring, but she dismissed it from her mind at once as none of her business.

  Instead, trying to match the light-hearted tone, she told her, ‘I need a stiff drink. Can you help a friend in need?’

  ‘That’s not like you,’ said Chloe, ‘but, yes, sure. Gin?’

  The drink did indeed make her feel better. The hysterical desire to laugh went away, and her hands stopped shaking.

  ‘What’s up?’ Chloe’s question was casual and her face was invisible, bent over the slow manicuring of her fingernails.

  ‘Trouble,’ Helen answered softly. ‘My mother’s lost her job. There’s no money coming in, so I’m going home to help out. No more Oxford. I was stupid to have come back at all.’

  Chloe shut her eyes, horrified. Once again the difference between Helen’s life and her own leapt out at her like a reproach.

  ‘Then,’ Helen’s gentle voice didn’t change its tone, ‘this afternoon, I discovered that someone has put seven hundred and fifty pounds in my bank. Just like that, with no word or explanation. Someone I’ve told about all this must want to help, but doesn’t want to be thanked. Or refused, I suppose.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘It has to be Oliver.’

  Chloe’s first instinct was to say No, surely not, but she checked herself. Helen, after all, knew the beautiful but unthinking Oliver better than she did.

  ‘Chloe, how do I give it back to him?’

  Chloe was unwinding the rollers from her hair and she teased a long, shiny red strand in her fingers before she answered.

  ‘Must you give it back? Think. Whoever it was made a considered decision. No-one has that kind of money just sitting in a pocket waiting to be handed out in a reckless gesture and then regretted. Whoever gave it to you, wanted you to have it, and probably went to quite a lot of trouble to present you with it in the least embarrassing way. Have you got to reject it out of hand? Would the money help?’

  ‘Help?’ Helen considered it for the first time. ‘God, yes. It would see us through to the New Year. There’s a possibility of another job for Mum then.’ She stood up, suddenly excited as the realisation dawned on her. ‘It might even mean that I wouldn’t have to leave.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Chloe.

  ‘You think I should take it?’

  ‘Yes.’ And Chloe poured another generous measure of gin into Helen’s glass as if to clinch it.

  Helen grinned, the brightness breaking through the shadows in her face.

  ‘But I’ve spent the whole day saying heartrending goodbyes to people. I’m all packed, ready to go. I can’t just reappear, can I?’

  Patiently, Chloe knelt down in front of Helen’s chair and took her small, cold hands between her own.

  ‘Look. People who care about you will be grateful that you’re still here after all. And those who don’t, why should you care about them? Just go home for a few days. See your mother, talk about what’s happened, make some plans, and then come back. I’ll explain to whoever needs to be told, if you like.’

  Helen nodded, grateful, knowing that Chloe was right. She was beginning to feel warm and comfortable again, and the brave face that she had worn all day wasn’t needed any more.

  She wasn’t ready, yet, to think about what Oliver’s absurdly generous gesture meant to her. Or where it left the two of them now. But it rubbed away a little of the hurt and loss to know that he had done it.

  ‘I even said goodbye to Pansy and Oliver,’ she said suddenly, and laughed. ‘Very crisply and coolly. I felt rather pleased with myself.’

  Chloe eyed her sharply. ‘You know about it?’

  ‘It’s only just happened.’ Helen was quick to defend Oliver. ‘He didn’t … you know, deceive me. Not that he even owed me that,’ she added quickly. ‘Tom Hart says they’re made for each other. I suppose he’s right.’

  Chloe was making her face up now, deftly stroking colour on to her eyelids.

  ‘And you deserve better.’ Without allowing a contradiction, Chloe swept on
. ‘Now. Let’s get organised. When’s your train?’ Meekly Helen told her. ‘Perfect. I have to be with Stephen by seven, so I can drop you at the station on the way there. Hurry.’

  Half an hour later they were both ready.

  Helen said, ‘You look lovely.’

  Chloe was wearing a discreet black silk crepe dinner dress, the long sleeves and high neck buttoned with dozens of tiny covered buttons. It was a perfect foil for her beautiful hair, falling in a mass of rich waves around her face. Her only ornament was the diamond studs in her ears.

  ‘It’ll be your turn next,’ said Chloe and then frowned inwardly at the clumsiness of that. She had only meant that it would be Helen’s turn to have as nice a time as she was having herself.

  But Helen’s mind in any case was on her train, and home.

  Chloe left her in the station forecourt, a slim dark girl with a determined face and a bag that looked too heavy for her.

  As she swung her car back into the traffic, Chloe bit her lip reflectively. Lucky. You’re so lucky, she told her herself. Then she thought of Stephen waiting for her and the prospect chased everything else out of her head.

  Five

  ‘Benedictus, benedicat.’ Into the echoing quiet in the Hall, the Senior Student delivered the endpiece of the Latin grace from his high lectern. Chloe dropped her hands from the tall chairback in front of her and let Stephen settle her into her place. Around her, in a flutter of black gowns, the dons and their guests sat down. From where she sat, at the Master’s right on the low dais, Chloe had a perfect view down the Hall. The sight made her shiver slightly. Stephen’s College was an ancient foundation, and this Hall was the jewel amongst its fine buildings.

  Over the heads of the undergraduates at their long tables, the roof arched away into dimness, the magnificent hammer beams only just visible. There were glimmers of gold in the dark, from the ornamented bosses and shields. Beneath the elegant tracery of the Gothic windows set high in the walls, the double row of portraits of past Masters in their gold frames stretched back into the sixteenth century. Under so many calm pairs of eyes even the present generation of irreverent diners seemed quieter and more sober in their gowns. The arch of the roof and the solid stone walls muffled the clamour of talk to a low murmur.

  Chloe’s gaze shifted to the table in front of her, a massive slab of black oak polished like a mirror. It was heavy with thickets of glasses, silverware and crested china. Behind her, white-coated College servants were preparing to serve the first course. She glanced sideways and met Stephen’s eyes.

  ‘Sure you wouldn’t rather just have an egg?’ He was gently mocking the magnificence for her, and a quick smile flashed between them. Then Chloe inclined her head to listen respectfully to the Master. He had seemed very old and forbidding, an expert in classical antiquities, but now Chloe saw that his faded eyes were quick with interest.

  ‘So, Miss Campbell, you must tell us something about advertising.’

  In other words, Chloe thought, here you are … so entertain us. Deliberately she shook out her heavy linen napkin and began to talk.

  The conversation was measured and highly polished – like a rare art-form, she told herself. Over the savoury soufflé and the rare roast lamb, Chloe’s opinion was sought on Piero della Francesca, co-education, and a Snowdon photograph of the Master that had just appeared in one of the colour supplements. Everything she said was listened to as gravely as if she were a great authority.

  Beside her, Stephen seemed just as courteously formal, but when the hawk-faced linguist opposite Chloe said, ‘We are so fortunate in having Dr Spurring, who brings such interesting people to enliven our High Table,’ he breathed in her ear, ‘He means women. The old bastard’s notoriously jealous. And watch he doesn’t pinch your bottom when we get upstairs.’

  Chloe stared hard at her plate to stifle the laughter. She was impressed in spite of her worldliness by the ancient Hall and the civilised brilliance of the talk, and it gave the experience an extra little edge to have Stephen close to her, mildly poking fun at it.

  The food came and went, unambitious but good. It was the wines that were remarkable. Stephen kept signalling for her glass to be refilled with the fragrant claret that accompanied the lamb. Leo Dawnay had taught Chloe what she knew about wine, and she remembered him saying that the finest wines he had ever tasted came from the cellars of Oxford Colleges.

  ‘Drink as much as you can of this,’ Stephen told her. ‘We’re not likely to see much more of it. The Bursar sold almost the last few cases to pay for some dreary new flooring in the Library. Terrible fuss about it in College Meeting.’

  At the end of the main course, long after the last undergraduate had left the Hall, the Master collected the table with a practised eye. Everyone stood up. How odd that there was no pudding, Chloe thought.

  Two by two they filed out of the Hall and up a shallow spiral staircase.

  ‘What now?’ Chloe whispered to Stephen.

  ‘Wait and see,’ he told her.

  The Master stopped at a low wooden door under a pointed Gothic arch. Outside the door was a row of hooks, and the fellows took off their gowns and hung them up. Then the Master stood aside from the door.

  ‘He has been presiding up to now, of course,’ Stephen told Chloe. ‘But this is the Senior Common Room, to which the Master doesn’t belong. So the senior fellow present takes over, which happens to be boring old Puffett this evening. Don’t worry, I’ll see you don’t get stuck with him.’

  ‘Won’t you come in, Master?’ asked old Puffett.

  ‘Thank you, Senior Tutor.’

  Together they went in through the low door.

  Chloe, following on in her turn, gasped faintly when she saw the room. The focus of it was a stone fireplace with a new fire crackling in it. Over the fire hung the portrait of the College’s Royal founder that Chloe had often admired, in an inferior later version, in the National Gallery. The room was lit by the blaze of candles in three silver-gilt candelabra and beyond the rich glow the corners were shadowy with carved oak panelling and velvet curtains.

  In front of the fireplace was a horseshoe of table, its arms towards the fire. And the table shone and sparkled with more glasses, crystal and silverware. But this time there was no china. Chloe saw incredulously the dull gleam of gold plate. Between heaped bowls of fruit, nuts and petits fours stood fat crystal decanters of plummy port.

  ‘According to the rules,’ Stephen murmured, ‘I can’t sit with you up here. I have to let you go now, so that my colleagues can enjoy your company too. Who would you like to be put next to?’

  Chloe glanced round wildly. ‘You know them. You choose for me.’

  When she was escorted to her place at the opulent horseshoe, she found herself between an urbane economist with a practised smile and a young man with a shock of blond hair and a worn black leather jacket.

  ‘This is Dave Walker,’ Stephen told her. ‘Our token Red.’

  ‘Piss off,’ said Dave good-humouredly. ‘She’s mine now, and I’ll do my own political introductions. Go and talk to Puffett about the building fund,’ he turned to Chloe with a grin, ‘while your beautiful guest and I discuss life, love and literature. Steve likes to have his little joke because ten years ago he was a Marxist, and he feels bad now because he’s sold out.’

  Has he? Chloe wondered. When did the cool, cynical don take over from the young idealist? She wanted to know Stephen better, much better, she told herself. They sat down and Chloe asked wickedly, ‘How do you manage to be a Marxist and still sit up here surrounded by all this, eating off this?’ She tapped her gold plate until it rang, the very sound of privilege.

  Dave laughed merrily. ‘Terrible, isn’t it? They only bring the best stuff out in secret up here in case the poor deprived masses of undergraduates see it and decide to rush the defences. Have the trifle, by the way. It’s wonderful.’

  The trifle was wonderful, a perfect concoction of cream and fruit and nuts, accompanied by a fine white bor
deaux.

  ‘No,’ Dave was saying mock-seriously. ‘I reckon I can change things best from the inside. See that everyone gets gold plate to eat off as soon as possible. Port, madam? Do have it, then it’ll give me the chance to pass it round the wrong way. It throws them all into such a fury I can’t resist doing it. Any more than I can seriously resist all this booze and grub. I put this on,’ he tugged at his shred of a tie, ‘come in from Cowley on the bike, and enjoy it for what it is – one of life’s bizarre little anachronisms. It won’t be going on for much longer anyhow,’ he added darkly. ‘Don’t miss the petits fours, whatever you do. Chef’s a celebrated confiseur.’

  Now Chloe’s other neighbour was claiming her attention. Warmed and mellowed by the wine and port, she embarked on a spirited argument about the economics of advertising.

  The economist flirted outrageously. He watched her mouth and eyes as she talked, leaning forward occasionally to fill her glass or to take the silver nutcrackers from her fingers to crack the kernel out of its shell for her. ‘You’re very lovely,’ he told her seriously, ‘and you talk such beautiful nonsense.’

  ‘Not nonsense,’ she responded, indignantly. ‘I know my business.’

  The economist laughed and put his hand over hers. ‘Don’t talk about business. Tell me about you.’

  From the opposite arm of the horseshoe, Stephen winked at her.

  When the port had made its last circuit and the last crumb of Stilton and sweetmeat had been eaten, Puffett stood up again. His face was deep crimson and he swayed very slightly as he delivered the Latin benediction that marked the formal end of the evening.

  ‘Is that it?’ Chloe asked Stephen when he rejoined her at the door.

  ‘Certainly not. Upstairs again, for brandy, coffee and cigars. Everyone finally lets their hair down, if you relish the spectacle of us old gents doing that. They’ll all be groping madly for you. I think we’ll just have a quick nightcap and then make our adieux before the fights break out.’