That Was Then

by That Was Then (retail) (epub)

  ‘I’m returning your call, but this is obviously a bad moment,’ I said with icy sarcasm.

  ‘Yes, why don’t we have lunch or something?’

  ‘I can’t believe Ben’s actually there, as we speak, what the hell is going on?’

  ‘I tell you what, shall I come down and meet you outside your office at twelve?’

  ‘I’m not at the office. Come to the flat.’

  ‘I shall. A tout à l’heure.’

  She arrived on the dot, and ran up the stairs with light, quick steps. She wore cream jeans and a pink sweatshirt and her hair had been cut spectacularly, statement-making short.

  I marched ahead of her into the sitting room and faced her with my arms folded.

  ‘What was Ben doing there?’

  ‘He came to see Sophie.’ My expression must have told her what I thought of that, for she added: ‘He’s going up north with her for a few days.’

  That hurt so much I had to turn away. With my back to her I said: ‘You know he lost his job.’

  ‘Yes, that was unfortunate, but he’ll get another, better one. He’s a bright boy.’

  She was unbelievable.

  ‘And what about Martin? He obviously doesn’t know anything yet.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘and what he does not know will not hurt him.’ There was a warning note in her voice.

  ‘I’m not going to say anything.’

  ‘Good heavens, I never dreamed that you would, Eve. You are far too sophisticated to do anything so stupid.’

  ‘No I’m not!’ I snapped. ‘And there would be nothing stupid about telling Martin. It simply isn’t my place to do it.’

  ‘Precisely.’ She looked around. ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘If you want.’

  She sat on the sofa. I continued to stand there, looking down at her, but instead of feeling superior I felt like an adolescent miscreant up before the beak.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean all that about lunch.’

  ‘Of course not, you only said it because Martin was there.’

  She let this pass. Her slim hands rested on her knees, fingers loosely linked, wrists together as though caught in handcuffs.

  ‘The reason I rang,’ she said, ‘ is because I want you to know that we are trying to work things out.’

  ‘That’s simple,’ I said bitterly. ‘Stop.’

  ‘It’s not simple, it is complicated,’ she went on as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘And we are doing our best. Ben will be away for a little while and Martin and I will have some time together. We shall see.’

  ‘What about me?’ I asked. ‘What role do you see for your boyfriend’s mother in all of this?’

  She looked up at me steadily. ‘It’s not my business to tell you what your role should be, Eve.’

  ‘But you want me to keep quiet about it.’

  ‘I don’t see the need to cause unnecessary pain.’

  This was too much. ‘Sabine, if you could only hear yourself! The hypocrisy of it! The only person you’re trying to protect is yourself!’

  ‘Not the only one. But I am frightened.’

  ‘Good. You should be.’

  ‘I’ll go.’ She got up. ‘You have some beautiful flowers.’

  I didn’t answer. With her hand on the front door latch she said: ‘Charles McNally may be coming down for the weekend. He mentioned he especially wanted to see you.’

  ‘He has my telephone number.’

  ‘Then I’m sure you’ll be hearing from him.’

  When I closed the door after her I was shaking. Ben had gone ‘up north’ and I was the last to know. The notion that she had any power to influence my relationship – if it could be called that – with Charles McNally sickened me. As did her composure, her restraint, her queenly refusal to apologise – I felt that until that moment I’d never known what it was to hate someone.

  On Friday I decided I couldn’t face sitting through a concert with Clive. I even got as far as picking up the phone, but he didn’t answer, and the bleeps for ‘ Call Waiting’ made me replace the receiver – it might be Ben.

  But it was Desma, asking about tennis.

  ‘I know Ronnie can’t,’ she said. ‘She goes in for those tests on Sunday. But what about Sabine?’

  ‘She can’t either.’

  ‘So shall we have another singles – I really enjoyed it.’

  ‘Oh Desma, I don’t know, I’ve been a bit down myself this week—’

  ‘It might be just what you need, then.’

  ‘I don’t know.…’

  ‘Look, let’s say we’ll do usual time and place and if you really can’t face it give me a buzz, OK?’

  Placed in an opt-out position I knew that I would probably go. The last thing I felt like was playing tennis, I felt drained and exhausted, but if Charles McNally was going to be around at the weekend I wished to appear to have at least some semblance of a life. Falling asleep in front of the TV in a hotel room could in his case be attributed to a high-octane job – I had no such excuse.

  For the same reason I did not, in the end, cry off the concert with Clive. A Friday night in on my own, feeling wretched about Ben, was not a recipe for self-esteem. And if Charles were to arrive tonight I wanted Sabine to find out that I was not as available as she might imagine.

  As it turned out, neither concert nor tennis was quite the simple time-filler I’d anticipated. Clive was in ebullient form and looking, if not unrecognisable, then very definitely a new man. He told me he’d lost half a stone, but it looked more because of a marked redistribution; he’d had his trademark whispy hair cut short which made him appear less bald; and his grappling with the bugbear exercise had given him an increased air of confidence. He showed not the slightest sign of falling asleep in the concert, which was accessibly tuneful, and he was cheerful and amusing over interval drinks.

  ‘This is so jolly, Eve – we should do it more often.’

  ‘We should.’

  ‘After all, you and I are in a similarly semi-detached state. Except, of course,’ he added hastily, ‘I realise that you are moving towards full detachment, whereas I am pulled in the opposite direction – still, you know what I mean.’

  I remembered what Helen had told me at our last meeting, about the distant train.

  ‘Have you and Helen spoken at all recently?’

  ‘No, but I’m mustering my forces.’

  ‘I can see that!’

  ‘Dear Eve …’ He blushed, he was such a nice man. ‘No, since getting more of a grip of myself I have realised that there is nothing, absolutely nothing less alluring than self-pity. All that whining, dear Lord …!’ He shuddered. ‘I was without doubt what the students call a sad bastard.’

  We laughed. ‘If you were, it was with some justification.’

  ‘Never mind, enough is enough. The next time I see Helen I shall, I hope, be rather better company.’

  I had no doubt of it. In spite of everything, it was a happy evening and I slept better than I had in several days.

  I woke up feeling that tennis might not be completely out of the question, but Desma was at her most indefatigable, covering the court like a gnat in a paper bag. She demolished me in straight sets, and even lifted the best-of-five which we tacked on the end.

  In the Cutter I said: ‘Sorry not to have given you a better game.’

  ‘Not at all. I was having a good day,’ she added honestly. ‘It happens like that sometimes, doesn’t it?’

  We were sharing a large helping of chips with mayonnaise and she was getting through them at an impressive rate.

  ‘How’s everything?’ I asked. ‘Any more on the Rick front?’

  She shook her head. ‘But he knows where I stand. I told him that as far as I was concerned playing away was not an option – for either of us. I said it wasn’t what we got married for and he might as well know that if I ever found that he’d been fooling around I’d pack my bag, and Bryony’s, and we’d be home to mother before yo
u could say decree nisi.’

  ‘He can never accuse you of equivocation,’ I said. ‘What pretext did you find for all that?’

  ‘There was a documentary on TV – what makes marriage work, sort of thing. It opened up the debate a treat.’

  ‘And did Rick – debate?’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice. He agreed with every word I said.’

  ‘You still think there’s something going on?’

  Desma licked mayonnaise off her fingers. ‘I’m sure there has been. I don’t know what stage it’s at now, but I have a feeling it may not last. Rick will be scared shitless.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to lose you,’ I agreed.

  ‘Maybe.’ She scrunched up her napkin. ‘But he definitely doesn’t want to lose Bryony, and I’m afraid I’m not above using our daughter as a human shield.’

  ‘You’re very brave,’ I said.

  ‘Correction,’ said Desma. ‘I’m not brave, and I’m not beautiful and I’m not particularly bright. But I’m very, very practical.’

  I considered the merits of practicality as I drove home. But on my return nothing could have been further from my mind as I listened to Charles McNally’s recorded message.

  ‘Hello Eve. It’s twelve noon, and I just checked in at the hotel overlooking the sea here. The – er—’ I could hear him checking the notepaper – ‘Esplanade. Sabine invited me to stay but it was you I came to see this time so it didn’t seem right to treat their place like a flophouse. If you have any time this weekend I’d really appreciate the chance to make up for behaving like such a slob in town. I’ll call again later. Bye now.’

  How strange, I thought, that he and I had been in the same building for an hour or more – he had probably been recording that message in his room as Desma and I sat in the Cutter Bar.

  He was not staying with the Drages. He had not asked me to call him. He had come to see me. My heart had been heavy for days, but now it showed that it had not forgotten how to beat faster.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He called again when I was in the shower. I’d left the machine on, and it was strange to hear first Ben’s voice, then his – the two people who were most in my thoughts, talking to each other, as it were, through me.

  I grabbed a towel and stumbled through to pick up the receiver.

  ‘Charles?’

  ‘Is that Eve at last?’

  ‘I was in the – I’d only just got in and hadn’t turned this thing off.’

  ‘Look, it’s so great to be by the sea, would you like to go for a walk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on over then, I’m out here already.’

  I trailed the phone closer to the balcony door and sure enough there he was, standing leaning on the promenade rail with his ankles crossed, talking into a mobile.

  ‘I’ll just get changed.’

  Five minutes later I crossed the road. He was facing the other way now, watching the people on the beach, but he turned round as I approached.

  ‘Eve – hi there.’

  ‘Hello.’

  I sensed for a moment his uncertainty about how to greet me – a kiss, a handshake, both – but in the end he took my hand and enfolded it briefly in both of his. He was wearing a denim shirt, navy fleece waiscoat, cords and desert boots: the upmarket American version of what to wear for a walk by the sea, more suited to the panoramic rocks and surf of Big Sur than the grumbling shingle of Littelsea – but I liked it.

  ‘I’m in your hands. Which way shall we go?’

  That wasn’t difficult. The nicest walk was up the cliff path, but the associations of that particular route were still too fresh and too painful.

  ‘Let’s go along to the Martello Tower,’ I said. ‘ It dates from the Napoleonic Wars, and there’s a little museum inside.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  We began walking. He said nothing, and I remembered from before that he wouldn’t speak simply to fill a silence. But silences made me anxious.

  ‘The roses are amazing,’ I said accordingly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Were they pretty? I hope so.’

  ‘And so many – I hardly knew where to put them all.’

  He smiled apologetically. ‘They had a big job to do.’

  ‘Not really,’ I assured him. ‘After all, I fell fast asleep too.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  Either he was being polite or he hadn’t watched my head lolling as I dropped off. ‘We were both spark out. I just happened to wake up first.’

  ‘So I can stop feeling like an asshole, at least on that count.’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  There ensued another short silence, which again I broke. ‘Did you have a good drive down?’

  ‘We did. Or should I say it looked good from where I was sitting. I don’t have to drive.’

  ‘Even at a weekend?’

  ‘Especially on a weekend. Un-American, I know, but I hate to drive.’

  ‘I find that so surprising.…’

  He gave a droll shrug. ‘Only reason I got to the top, Eve, so I could get someone like Marian to run me about.’

  ‘You have a woman driver?’ I recalled the dark-suited figure at the wheel, after the Drages’ party.

  ‘Weird, huh?’

  ‘I don’t mean that. But you must admit it’s not very usual.’

  ‘She’s terrific. I don’t know I’m moving. That’s the thing about not driving oneself, you totally trust whoever’s in charge.’

  ‘And I suppose – in your work – everyone else has to trust you,’ I said, venturing into an area we had never touched on.

  ‘They absolutely do.’

  I waited for him to add something, some colourful example or anecdotal evidence. None was forthcoming, but I did not, as I might have done before, feel that I was being rebuffed – more that he did not wish to weigh down this pleasant occasion with talk of work. I was beginning to relax with him.

  Our expedition was, as the soccer pundits might have said, a game of two halves. We walked quite briskly for the mile and a half to the Martello Tower, making intermittent small talk. I told him about Littelsea – what there was to tell – and he prompted me with supplementary questions and kindly comments along this-is-so-typically-English lines. For Littelsea he traded his own home town of Denver. From the unfocused edges of what he told me I formed a picture of a preppy upbringing with private school, horses, skiing and a black-tie social life more strictly stratified than anything I’d encountered in supposedly classbound Britain.

  That was the first half. We reached the Martello Tower and went round the museum at that slightly dutiful strolling pace one feels bound to adopt when doing such things with another person. Seeing it through Charles’s eyes I was a little dismayed: the building was cold and musty, the conversion into a museum not especially imaginative or sympathetic, and the display itself modest. I’d seen it all before anyway – it was a regular jaunt with visitors – and was surprised at his interest in everything. I kept finding that I’d left him behind as he pored over old maps and letters, or stood admiring the handiwork of Huguenot prisoners. At one point he began talking to the museum guide, a retired naval officer employed by the National Trust, and I thought we’d never get away, especially as there was only a handful of visitors in the building and the guide was dying to air his knowledge. But it was impossible to feel impatient – Charles was so personable and such a good listener, I could see that it was (as the guide said when they shook hands) a pleasure to do business with him.

  The way out took us past the tea room. ‘Shall we?’ he asked.

  ‘If you like.’

  In answer, he went over to the counter. The place was empty and the two ladies behind the urn made a fuss of us. We had tea for two and Charles had a slice of carrot cake. The metal-and-formica table wobbled dangerously if you leaned on it, but after a first mouthful he tapped the cake appreciatively with his fork.

  ‘Tha
t is terrific.’

  ‘It looks good. I believe it’s all home-made.’

  ‘You want some?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  He addressed the ladies, over his shoulder: ‘Did you make this cake?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ replied their spokesperson. ‘Another of our helpers did, she bakes three times a week.’

  ‘Tell her it’s worth it.’

  They beamed girlishly. ‘We will, thank you!’

  ‘You’ve made their day,’ I confided in him.

  He looked at me. ‘You’re making mine.’

  In the little shop – another lady, another smile – he bought a selection of maps and leaflets and a large expensive book about the Cinque Ports of which they probably only sold one a year. I was outside the door before I realised that yet again he wasn’t with me. When he emerged he was carrying an additional small National Trust gift carrier, which he held out to me.

  ‘You probably have a house full of this stuff,’ he explained, ‘ so let’s just say I can’t think who else to give it to.’

  It was a bone china mug decorated with part of one of the old naval letters from the museum, and on the other side a crest with the motto ‘Fortitudine’. It was a nice piece, but I knew it would have been horribly overpriced.

  ‘I haven’t got anything like it,’ I said, ‘and thank you – it’s lovely.’

  ‘Here,’ he said, opening his carrier bag to take my present. ‘Let me. Can we walk back along the beach?’

  ‘Yes, of course. It’s pretty heavy going on the shingle, but if you don’t mind that.…’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  We went down the precipitous steps and he led the way almost to the water’s edge before striking back towards home.

  This was when another sea change took place. It could have been for any number of reasons: our slower and less even pace on the stones; the heave and sigh of the waves at our side; the westering sun ahead of us; the indefinably different feel of a homeward journey … But whatever it was, it freed us up as though we’d just downed a bottle of wine instead of a pot of Tetley’s, and we began to talk about ourselves.

  It turned out he hadn’t been the summa cum laude ivy league graduate of my supposition, but the only boy in a family of four who had struggled unsuccessfully to do justice to an expensive education and to reach a par with his three over-achieving older sisters. He’d had a happy and privileged boyhood, and the indulgent love of his mother and sisters had protected him from any sense of disappointment until he was in his late teens. Consistently poor grades across the board had led to one of those more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger talks with his father, and he had gone direct from high school onto the ground floor of Ankatex, where a certain bloody-mindedness had set in.