by Anne Weale
Opening her bedroom door, Rosie said, 'No, I'm here,' and beckoned Sasha in. 'How did Brighton go?'
'Terrific . . . a breeze. They gave me a super lunch and it all went to plan. Hey, what a surprise to find Nick here!'
'Yes, and as far as I'm concerned not a particularly welcome one. My day was hell on wheels and I'd promised myself a relaxing evening.'
'What are you fussing about? Your hair's not a mess. You don't look bushed. You look great.'
'Sasha, that isn't the point. How I look is irrelevant. I wanted a quiet evening.'
'So have one. Let Nick do the talking. If you can't be bothered to sparkle, maybe I will. I quite fancy him now, as a matter of fact. If you're really not interested, it might be amusing to divert his interest to me. If I can, that is.'
'I should think any passable female could divert him... temporarily. But when you go down to Spain to do the feature on him, you'll find his longer-term needs are catered for by a Frenchwoman—possibly a widow but more likely a divorcee—who lives in the same village.'
'Really? Did you meet her?'
'No, but I heard about her and she's in his book. Before you start something with him, you'd better read it. He's obviously found himself one of those legendary Frenchwomen who cooks, dresses, decorates her house, entertains and makes love about ten times better than the rest of us.' 'If she's as wonderful as that, why doesn't he snap her up?'
'I've no idea. Maybe she doesn't want to be snapped up. Maybe she's had a husband and finds a lover better. That could be the essence of her charm... that she makes no demands. Anyway, be warned. Tangling with Nick could end in tears.'
'I'll bear it in mind,' said Sasha. 'Right now I'm going to take a quick tub. I've been looking forward to it all the way back from Brighton.'
When Rosie went downstairs, aware that her strictures to Sasha had an element of hypocrisy in them because if Nick hadn't been here she would have worn jeans and a sweatshirt and not bothered to replace her makeup after taking it off for her bath, she found him reading a copy of the Brighton newspaper Sasha had brought back.
'Not bad... not as good as the News, although I dare say that's changed a good deal since our time,' he said, as she joined him. 'Do you ever miss journalism, Rosie?'
'Not really. I'm still in contact with journalists, national and provincial. Magazine people too. I have the best of all worlds.'
'You two have certainly made yourselves very comfortable here... and what a nice woman Clare is.'
'Yes, we're very lucky to have her.'
'When she mentioned having a daughter, I would have assumed she was a widow or separated, but she's neither, I gather. Whoever left her in the lurch must be a bit of a bastard.'
'Perhaps not.. .just young and feckless. He may not even have known she was pregnant. She never talks about it.'
'Obviously you and Sasha don't want to lose her, but it seems sad for her to go through life on her own.'
'I think Clare's quite content. Marriage isn't always all it's cracked up to be.'
'No, but when it does work it's a good way to live. You don't plan to be wedded to your career forever, do you?'
'Having got this far, I don't plan to give it up... which is what marriage might demand. Sasha and I are in much the same position as you are. We've organised a life for ourselves in which our only need for a man is as a lover.'
'And to father your children... or have children no place in your scheme of things?'
They had, but she wasn't going to tell him that. Having enjoyed being part of a large family herself, she had always included three or four children as part of her life-plan. She shrugged. 'Do they have a place in yours?'
To her surprise, he said, 'Yes. At the time I bought the monastery, I wasn't thinking of it in terms of an ideal house for a large family. But now I should very much like to fill it with my progeny. Being an only child myself, I've always envied people like you who grew up with brothers and sisters to play with.'
'You surprise me. Although obviously you enjoy pleasant and comfortable surroundings, I shouldn't have suspected you of wanting to be a paterfamilias.'
'I'm equally surprised to find you a dedicated career woman.'
'I don't like that expression. It makes the women it's applied to sound strange and unnatural. No one regards it as strange for a man to take his job seriously and give it most of his attention. Why should it be considered odd in a woman?'
'You're right, of course, but a moment ago you found it odd of me to want to have five or six kids running around the monastery. Why should it be thought normal for your sex to want children but peculiar when men do?'
Sasha came down the stairs. Usually for evenings at home, she wore a velour tracksuit. Tonight she had changed into a flame-coloured chenille sweater with a long string of red Chinese beads and a very short black leather skirt with her sexiest black diamond-pattern tights. Haven't you offered him a drink yet, Rosie? He must be longing for one. What would you like, Nick?'
It was, for Rosie, a strange evening, superficially relaxed and convivial but with an underlying tension. She could see that the two other women look to Nick unreservedly. And indeed he was very good company, never holding the floor for too long, as interested in them as they were in him. It seemed to Rosie that, in spite of her warning, Sasha was exerting herself to charm him. After they had eaten and Clare had tactfully withdrawn to her own quarters, Sasha said, 'If you've nothing better to do tomorrow, would you like to come with me? I've got a short job in Reading—it won't take more than an hour—and I know a pub in the area where they do a very good lunch; I could drop you at Heathrow in time for your flight.'
'That would be fine. Why don't you come too, Rosie?'
'Too busy, I'm afraid.' Had he really wanted to include her, or had that been merely politeness?
'Pity: some country air—if Berkshire counts as the country—would have done you good. Have you had a cold since you came to Spain? You look a bit wan.'
She shook her head. 'I feel fine. Most people here are pale at this time of year, unless they've been lying in the sun somewhere.'
'Sasha always was pale. It's her colouring. But you used to have rosy cheeks. Rosie by name, and rosy by nature, you were.'
'Roly-poly and rosy . . . sounds like a pink pork sausage. Which was rather what I used to look like. Thank God I don't any more. What you call wan, others call pale and interesting. I've got some papers to look through before tomorrow, so I'm going to say goodnight... and goodbye.'
She stood up and held out her hand and Nick rose and kissed it, not just bowing and brushing it lightly but pressing a proper kiss on the back of her palm. She could still feel the warmth of his lips on her hand when she reached her room. She sank on to the bed and then lay back on the duvet and, hardly knowing what she was doing, laid the back of her hand on her mouth as if, by so doing, she could somehow transfer the feel of his lips to hers.
I want him, she thought. I want to know what it's like to be in his arms, to hold him in my arms. But I don't know if he wants me. He seems more interested in Sasha now. Oh, God, I can't bear it if they have an affair. It's had enough that he's involved with the French woman. But to have him coming here often, perhaps spending nights with Sasha— that would be unbearable. We discussed what to do about lovers before we bought the house; we agreed that there might be occasions when we might want a man to spend the night with us and, handled with discretion, that would be all right. And it was. When Sasha was involved with Miles, he slept with her under this roof and nobody minded. Both Clare and I turned a blind eye. It was Sasha's business.
But if it were Nick it would be different. I couldn't ignore his presence in Sasha's bed. It would be torture.
I love him, damn him. I love him. I always have, and I know now that I always will.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ROSIE'S lunch at her desk the next day was a pot of low-fat yoghurt and an orange. Now, every time she ate an orange, it would remind her of the fruit Nick had
picked for her breakfast at El Monasterio. An imported orange did not have the same essence-of-sunlight flavour as one plucked from a tree.
She thought of Sasha and Nick, holed up in some cosy pub, a free house with real oak beams and real horse-brasses and a landlord who had resisted the pressure to install a jukebox. She could have been eating with them, tucking into home-made steak and kidney pudding, or shepherd's pie, or Cheddar cheese and pickled onions, instead of being here by herself, eating yoghurt with a teaspoon to make it last as long as possible. She felt a wave of nostalgia for the farm and Mum's hearty home cooking and the days when the only people she had loved had been her family.
Now she loved Sasha as much, perhaps more than she loved her married sisters whom she saw only once or twice a year, at Christmas and during a weekend at home in the summer. And, against her will, she loved Nick.
How could she bear it if Sasha turned out to be the right woman for him? Sasha's career was portable. A freelance photo-journalist had to be mobile, but her base could be anywhere. Whether Sasha would be prepared to have a large family Rosie wasn't sure. It was not something they had discussed. Almost everything else, but not that. Like Nick, her friend had neither brothers nor sisters. It was not impossible that she might have a latent desire to make up for being an 'only' by having lots of children herself. At this very moment something might be starting between her and Nick which would ultimately lead to the Frenchwoman's leaving Font Vella and Sasha's leaving Fulham. The thought of it wrenched Rosie's insides. It was bad enough being in love with a man who had an irresistibly charming mistress. It would be far worse if he fell for her best friend and settled down to make her an ideal husband.
For, deep down, Rosie-felt sure that Nick had it in him to be a marvellous husband. Once he found the right woman.
Perhaps what had stopped him from marrying Marie-Laure was that she was a few years older than he was, too old to bear the children he wanted. Yet, if he loved her, would he care about that?
A woman might have such a powerful maternal instinct that not having children could blight her life, but surely a man's wish to father children was never as strong as his desire for a woman he wanted?
If Nick truly loved Marie-Laure it would not matter to him that she was past or nearly past child-bearing age. Love did not demand that the loved one should be perfect in every way. Love didn't ask to be given; it wanted to give, to unload all life's best gifts on the beloved, regardless of self.
Maybe it was for that reason that Marie-Laure, having been asked, had refused to marry him. She might long to be his wife but feel that happiness was barred to her because she could never give him the large family he wanted.
Forcing herself to concentrate on the job in hand, checking a list of women's page editors who were to be sent review copies of a new book on knitting, Rosie found two omissions. When the most junior of her four assistants came back from her lunch break, Rosie called her into her office.
'You've been working here for three months now, Judy, and it's time we could rely on you to do things without somebody having to check them for careless slips. Yesterday I noticed you leaving ten minutes early and you're often late in the mornings. I know buses don't always run on schedule but at this stage of your career—if you're serious about it—you should be prepared to get up early enough to be here on time no matter what.'
'I'm sorry.' Judy hung her head and bit her lip. She was the brightest and best of the applicants for her job, but clearly she felt that life began at five-thirty and that Rosie was a pernickety fusspot whom it was impossible to satisfy.
'I'm sorry too, because this agency has been built on hard work and dedicated efficiency, and, the next time you fail to check and double-check that the job you've done is perfect, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave. We just don't have room for a passenger. Now take this list away and correct it, please.'
At the end of the working day, Rosie stayed at her desk because later she was going to a party at the Royal Automobile Club to launch a catalogue sponsored by the Booksellers'
Association.
The two juniors had already gone when her senior assistant came in with two mugs of decaff and said, 'I found Judy in tears in the loo this afternoon. You threatened her with the sack, I gather.'
Rosie nodded. 'If we've got to check everything she does, we might as well do it ourselves. When I made careless mistakes in my copy after three months as a junior reporter, I got a blast from the chief sub which would have made a midshipman in Nelson's Navy cringe.'
Even as she said it, Rosie realised that it was the kind of remark which, when older people said something similar, made her think, Oh, lord, here we go, back to the good old days when everything was so much better than now.
'Am I beginning to sound like a dragon?' she asked.
Her colleague shook her head. 'There's nothing like a little fire and brimstone for gingering up juniors. We may have to give her the push anyway. If a stern word from you is enough to reduce her to sobs in the loo, how will she ever cope with escorting a difficult author round the Birmingham-Wolverhampton circuit?'
Reminded of one of her own first tours, Rosie laughed.
She and a woman writer, who was equally inexperienced, had set out by train for the Midlands. The author had dressed for a major chat-show on TV rather than question-andanswer sessions with local radio presenters interspersed with Press interviews, one of which had taken place in the newspaper's crowded front office, another in an even more crowded pub. The schedule had not allowed enough time for lunch. They had had to make do with cheese rolls in a station buffet and the writer, whose feet were hurting after rushing around on stilettoes, had plumped down on a seat which had had a dollop of ketchup spilt on it. Nowadays Rosie sent all her clients a copy of 'Twenty tips for trouble-free touring', a leaflet of her own devising which she knew had been pirated by at least one other agency. Reassured that she had not been unduly harsh with Judy and in a more cheerful mood, Rosie went on working until it was time to go to the party. Then she changed her sweater for a silk shirt, replaced the gold hoops in her ears with large silver tassels and her neat black loafers with pumps and set off determined to enjoy herself.
An hour later a literary agent invited her to join a group having supper at the Groucho Club. It was late when she got back to Fulham but the light was on in the kitchen and an inviting aroma was wafting up to the hall. Clare must have been having one of her evening cookery sessions. She went down to speak to her.
'Hello, Rosie.' Their housekeeper was tidying up, her face flushed from the extra warmth generated by having several hobs and the oven on. 'Sasha's in the darkroom, developing the film she used today. Have you eaten?'
'Yes, thanks. What have you been making?'
'Fruit bread... a couple of casseroles ... things for the freezer. Look what came for me this morning. Aren't they lovely?' She pointed to the large bunch of daffodils—at least six ordinary bunches combined—massed in a tall square glass vase at the cooler end of the kitchen. They're from Nick. There's a big bunch of narcissi upstairs for you and Sasha. Wasn't it thoughtful of him to thank the cook as well as his hostesses?'
'Very.'
'And a note as well... look.' Clare took from the dresser a florist's card and handed it to her. Nick had written, 'Alice B. Toklas said that many first-rate women cooks had tired eyes and a wan smile, but clearly there are notable exceptions. Thank you for an excellent dinner and for making me welcome in your kitchen. N.W.'
'Who was Alice B. Toklas?' asked Clare. 'The name rings a bell but I can't place her.'
'You've probably noticed her cookery book somewhere. She and Gertrude Stein were Americans who lived in Paris between the wars and earlier. Gertrude Stein was a writer and a friend of artists like Picasso and Braque. She and Alice were, in effect, married.'
'You make me feel dreadfully ill-read,' said Clare.
'You and Angie make me feel horribly ignorant about music,' Rosie answered. 'We can't all be knowle
dgeable about everything.'
'I shouldn't think there are many subjects on which Nick isn't well-informed. Some of the famous people you and Sasha have asked to your parties have been no end of a disappointment to me. But he isn't. I could listen to him talking all night. I suppose he'll be back in Spain now.'
'Probably. I'm going to bed. Goodnight, Clare.'
On her way up to her room, she paused to inhale the light scent of the narcissi which must have brought their promise of spring from the Scilly Isles. It was too early for them to be out on the mainland.
The message on the card propped against the vase was, 'My thanks to you both for a most enjoyable evening. Nick.'
When Rosie reached the landing, the warning light was on outside the darkroom. She would not hear about Sasha's lunch with Nick until tomorrow.
Sasha came down to breakfast with a folder in her hand.
'What do you think of these?' She opened the folder and handed Rosie a six-by-eight black and white print of Nick leaning over a field gate.
That he was photogenic had already been proved on TV. The camera, unflattering to some faces, was not to his. The print reproduced his strong features and the brilliance of his eyes with the same charismatic effect they had when one met him. The quizzical lift of the eyebrow, the wide, amused mouth—the charm of the man was all there. Rosie's heart flipped over like a deftly tossed pancake.
'I took twenty-four and they've all come out well,' said Sasha. 'He's a natural. Couldn't care less what he looks like. Most men would have combed their hair and gone all stiff and self-conscious. He just did what I asked, like a pro, but without any preening.'
She handed Rosie shot after shot of Nick rambling around the countryside in the same corduroy jeans and chunky sweater over a cotton shirt he had worn the night before last. But in the photographs, the day being cold, the sweater was topped by a well-worn flier's-style jacket. The leather had moulded itself to the shape of his powerful shoulders.
'Did he ask you to take them?' Rosie asked.