That Was Then

by That Was Then (retail) (epub)

  ‘I couldn’t beat ’em,’ he explained, speaking of the other management trainees, ‘ so I sure as hell wasn’t going to join ’em. I’d been trying to do that with the girls for my whole life up to that point, and I just reckoned “Enough”. If I couldn’t find the cure for the common cold or win the Pulitzer then I was going to have to be a tough guy – the toughest. I was going to get out of a suit and into overalls.’

  ‘And now you’re back in a suit.’

  He shrugged, accepting the analysis. ‘Some of the time. I got too good at it.’

  I stumbled and lost my balance for a second, and he said ‘ Whoa—’ and put his free arm round my shoulders to steady me. As we walked on he simply allowed his arm to slip down to my waist. It was a gesture chivalrous rather than flirtatious, but the underlying assumption was that I would not object. Object? Kansas in August had nothing on me. I kept my own hands in my pockets but I was suddenly, devastatingly aware of how nice it was to feel a man’s arm about me, and not just any man’s, but Charles McNally’s.…

  … who was now asking me about myself.

  I told him, without labouring the point, about my separation from Ian. About the difference between our married life in the barn-like rectory, and our respective reincarnations as flat-dwellers. About our continuing amity which had been shaken in my case by the arrival of Julia. And about our children – up to a point. About Ben’s transgressions I felt not only that it would be disloyal to Ben and unfair to Charles to discuss them so soon, but that I didn’t want anything to smudge this bright interlude of self-absorption.

  ‘Eve,’ he said admiringly, ‘you are such a calm person.’

  I had to laugh. ‘I beg your pardon? Calm?’

  ‘Your whole life has changed, and yet you’re so together, you have such a positive attitude.’

  God forgive me, I thought. ‘Not always.’

  ‘I know women who spend a fortune on counselling just trying to get to where you are. You believe in God or something?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Not really? You do or you don’t.’

  ‘I suppose I’d like to, but I don’t. Do you?’

  ‘No.

  ‘I’d have thought that in disaster-management, it would practically have been a prerequisite.’

  ‘Quite the opposite,’ he said, suddenly stopping – and so halting us both – to look out to sea. ‘If I thought I was up against some divine power I’d never get out of bed in the morning.’

  ‘But if you believed in the divine power you’d reckon it was on your side.’

  ‘Good point.’

  As he said this he smiled, and made some small, appreciative movement with the hand that rested on my waist. I was glad we were outside with the sea breeze in our faces so that my blush wouldn’t be noticed.

  He released me, put down the bag and picked up a stone, which he sent skimming expertly over the surface of the water, leaping half a dozen times like a flying fish.

  ‘You’ve done that before,’ I observed admiringly.

  ‘You bet—’ he threw another – ‘and I can’t tell you what an asset it is at cocktail parties.’

  We walked on, laughing.

  When we reached Cliff Mansions we went back up on to the prom. It had clouded over and the breeze had become a chilly, nibbling wind.

  ‘Would you like to come in?’ I asked. I glanced at my watch. ‘Another cup of tea or something?’

  ‘I’d like to see where you live.’

  ‘Come on then.’

  He made light of the stairs, I noticed, but as I unlocked the door of the flat he commented: ‘That explains the great legs.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder as he came in. ‘No elevator. Hey this is really nice …’

  He put the National Trust bag on the hall table and went into the living room and straight to the balcony. ‘What a view. No wonder so many people want to end their lives by the sea.’

  ‘That wasn’t necessarily what I had in mind.’

  He laughed. ‘Of course not, I didn’t mean you. But all that space … it’s like the desert, it puts things in perspective.’

  ‘And it’s constant, but always changing.’

  ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,’ he agreed. ‘ You lucked out with this, Eve – you must be happy here.’

  ‘I am.’ I indicated the three vases of roses. ‘See how lovely they are, they did you proud.’

  In reply he gently touched one of the roses nearest him, and the touch made me shiver, as though it had been for me.

  ‘So what else do you have here?’ he asked. ‘Do I get the tour?’

  ‘It’s nothing special. There isn’t much to see.’

  ‘Yes but I’m looking for an apartment right now, I have this sudden interest in bathrooms and closets.’

  ‘All right – but I reserve the right to keep the door closed where there’s a mess.’

  ‘Eve!’ he came up to my shoulder as I led the way. ‘ You have a short memory. You owe me a mess. In fact, I demand one if I’m ever going to feel at ease in your company again.’

  I conceded this, and dutifully opened doors and pointed out the obvious, as one does with prospective buyers. He seemed genuinely interested, and tactfully confined his questions to structural matters. I couldn’t help feeling self-conscious – seeing my home through his eyes made me feel vulnerable, not because of untidiness but because, with Ben gone, it presented an almost spinsterly neatness. Also, a vase of the yellow roses stood on my dressing table amid an intimate womanly cluster of bottles and jars. Happily he made no comment on this, though he did exclaim over Ben’s room.

  ‘Your son sleeps in here? What is he, a monk?’

  ‘Hardly. He’s away at the moment so I took the opportunity to spring clean.’

  ‘I wonder will he appreciate that …’ He was walking across to the bed as he spoke, and picked up Algy. ‘Your son’s?’

  ‘Yes. He’s one thing I’d never throw away.’

  Charles pulled at the bear’s ears before replacing him carefully on the pillow. ‘They all go sometime.’

  When we were back in the hall, he handed me my present. ‘Don’t forget this. Would you come and have dinner with me tonight, at the hotel?’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘Is the food all right there? I guess you’d know more about that than me – you must be honest. We could go somewhere else, Marian hasn’t found herself a date as far as I know.’

  ‘No, The Esplanade’s fine. And it’s comfortable.’

  ‘Which is a real consideration at our age.’ I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. ‘What, about seven in the lobby?’

  As I closed the front door I looked at my watch – it was five o’clock. I prided myself on my ability to get ready in ten minutes flat, but suddenly two hours seemed like no time at all to effect the transformation I had in mind. It was terribly important that I surprise him, show him an aspect of myself that he had not seen and might not have suspected. If I had stopped to analyse it I’d have admitted that the effect I sought was sexy. Instead, as I got into a dressing gown, turned on the taps and rummaged through the wardrobe I registered only annoyance that I had taken my shorter skirts to the Oxfam shop. There were one or two of Mel’s in the spare room, but they were a size ten. It was cooler now, especially in the evening, so the blue shift I’d worn to have dinner with Ian was no longer appropriate.

  I had to abandon the search because the bath was almost overflowing. Up to my neck in hot water (an expression with a disturbing double meaning for me at that moment) I continued to grapple with the clothes question. It was a cliché – a full wardrobe and not a thing to wear. I realised that under normal circumstances I might have rung Sabine for advice on the issue. The realisation brought home to me just how much I had lost, and still stood to lose, because of what had happened. Even Ronnie’s reassuring remarks about Ben couldn’t alter the fact that he and Sabine were guilty of playing
fast and loose not only with each other, but with the trust which ought to be taken for granted between family and friends.

  As I sat in front of the mirror with my hair in a towel, a handful of yellow rose petals scattered over the dressing-table glass like little boats on a lake, I thought wistfully that here was a black hole in my friendship with Charles. How could a committed bachelor, accustomed to defining himself through his work (he had, after all, admitted as much) sympathise with the sulphurous complications of my life? I could neither consult nor confide in him about it, but in not doing so I felt I was being less than honest.

  I spent ages putting on make-up in order to look natural, and then blew dry and tonged my hair. I emptied the old supermarket carrier containing my tights on to the bed and spent further crucial minutes establishing, with many oaths and imprecations, that I did not have a pair that was unladdered. But this entirely predictable turn of events did at least solve the skirt problem – I’d have to wear trousers. And I did have a nice pair of claret velvet jeans that I’d bought in the sales in February, which I was now slim enough to wear and which I could team with an old but favourite cream silk shirt. Dangly Navajo earrings which Mel had brought back from holiday last summer completed a look which I fancied was casually elegant and – I undid another button – feminine.

  I arrived at the Esplanade fifteen minutes late and saw him sitting to the right of the door, talking on his mobile phone. I was the tiniest bit put out by this – was he the sort who had to fill every spare minute with work? – but the moment he saw me he switched it off and got to to his feet. He had arrived at pretty much the same conclusion as me on the what-to-wear issue – he’d put on a nice sage-green jacket with a pale blue shirt and navy trousers. Stylish, comfortable – we’d acknowledged the importance of that – but not too smart.

  ‘Sorry about the phone,’ he said, tucking it in his breast pocket, ‘I have to leave it switched on.’

  ‘Like a doctor, I suppose – in case of emergencies.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Beguilingly, he said this in a way which implied he knew his work was not of the calibre of a doctor’s. I found it very easy to forgive him.

  ‘Let’s have a drink,’ he said, waiting for me to sit down. ‘What are you having?’

  When the waiter had gone, he remarked: ‘You look lovely.’

  This time there was no offshore breeze to come to my rescue: I blushed, and it must have showed.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know what to wear.’

  He lifted a shoulder. ‘Who does?’

  Oh God, I thought, oh dear God, it can’t be true – he’s so nice. He uses words like ‘lovely’, he seems to know what I’m thinking, it’s as though I’ve known him all my life – Kansas again: and this time the corn was at least as high as an elephant’s eye.…

  ‘… one of the few advantages to being a man,’ he was saying. ‘There are fewer options. But I really like clothes. Being raised in a houseful of women taught me a proper sense of their importance. Getting ready to go out was like an indoor sport in our house, I must have spent hours as a kid watching my sisters empty closets and turn out drawers and fall prey to the vapours just so they could go out and break some guy’s heart in what they were wearing in the first place.’

  I wasn’t going to admit how accurate a picture this was. We talked fashion for a bit, and he commented, apropos of this, on Mel.

  ‘She’s what my mother would have called a bandbox. Smart as paint.’

  ‘Yes, that’s Mel – never a hair out of place.’

  ‘You know, I admire that. It takes spirit to make that amount of effort every day of your life.’

  It seemed only polite (and I hoped disarming) to concede the difference. ‘It’s not something I’ve ever been able to do.’

  ‘You don’t need to, Eve. You have a terrific daughter there, but she doesn’t have what you have.’

  He did not look at me as he said this. Luckily for me, the menus arrived.

  Over dinner I asked him to tell me more about his work. No doubt in deference to my ignorance he confined himself to broad brushstrokes.

  ‘It’s addictive,’ he said. ‘I can’t deny that when my time’s up in the New Year I’m going to be in deep withdrawal.’

  ‘So what is it you’re addicted to,’ I asked. ‘ Danger?’

  ‘Does that seem pretentious?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s the danger, it’s the unpredictability – the having to get in there and do something with no time to think. It’s the Ah! factor.’ He exhaled on the ‘Ah!’ so that it came out as a gasp.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The power of the elements …?’ He made it sound partly a question, as if he didn’t want to sound pompous. ‘You have the ocean right there, you know all about that. I get off on the desert, on fire and oil, those great natural tantrums that show us just how little we know. And if I’m honest—’ he paused as the waiter charged our glasses – ‘if I’m honest, it stops me becoming introspective. Helps me stay a moving target.’

  This struck me as a curious choice of words. ‘ Target? Who’s after you?’

  ‘Life.’ He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. ‘Adulthood.’

  ‘You seem pretty grown-up to me.’

  ‘It’s all done with mirrors, believe me.’

  Emboldened by the best part of a bottle of wine, this was my cue to ask the question which had been waiting in the wings all day.

  ‘Have you never been married?’

  ‘No, never have.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  He laughed, and then said ‘We-ell …’ as if assembling a whole catalogue of reasons. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ I wondered if I’d overstepped the mark.

  ‘All the usual ones I’m afraid. Never in the same place long enough, never met the right woman, never had the guts—’

  ‘Oh come on!’

  ‘True, though. Give me a firestorm over attrition any day.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be attrition.’

  ‘I believe you, but I never wanted to find out.’

  Still, I thought, all those years … I couldn’t even imagine a life at no stage marked out by the domestic rights of passage – marriage, babies, children growing up … Separation and divorce, even.

  I said, with a flippancy I didn’t feel: ‘So you love ’em and leave ’em, do you?’

  He shook his head. ‘ I should be so lucky. In every case but one they’ve left me. You’re looking at the developed world’s most experienced dumpee.’

  ‘What about the one?’

  For an awful moment I thought he was going to say that she’d died.

  ‘Case in point,’ he said. ‘We were in serious danger of becoming a long-term prospect. I got shortness of breath.’

  ‘I thought you were addicted to danger.’

  ‘Yes.’ He didn’t smile, but he did look into my eyes. ‘ But only with the Ah! factor.’

  At eleven o’clock he walked me back to Cliff Mansions. ‘Where’s Marian staying?’ I asked.

  ‘At the hotel. She’ll have had her feet up in front of the TV, she’s the biggest fan of that hospital series on a Saturday night.’

  ‘It must be a funny life for her. Is she married?’

  ‘Divorced. It’s not usual for her to work weekends. And she is extremely well paid.’

  ‘She’d need to be.’

  We reached the door. ‘Thank you for this evening,’ I said. ‘I have enjoyed it.’

  ‘And me. More than I can say. Will I see you at Sabine’s tomorrow?’

  I flashed hot and cold. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Really? I don’t believe it – they asked me up for Sunday lunch, I assumed you’d be there.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I wished he’d let it go. ‘Because I wasn’t invited.’

  He frowned. ‘ I don’t get it, when Sabine knew that I came down to see you.’


  I could see I was going to have to tell the truth, if not the whole of it. ‘Look, Charles, it sounds silly I know but Sabine and I have fallen out.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Quite badly. Something private. Shaking hands and letting bygones be bygones is simply not an option. Even Martin doesn’t know, so I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. But it makes me wish I wasn’t going myself.’

  Being excised from the Drages’ guest list was a small price to pay to hear him say that. ‘ You’ll have a wonderful time.’

  ‘I have to go back to London in the afternoon … I’ll call you, if I may.’

  ‘Do. And thank you again for a lovely evening.’

  Boldly and decisively, I held out my hand. But he gently moved it aside, and with it my boldness, and instead touched my face. It was that same touch – gentle and appreciative – that he had given the roses in my flat.

  ‘Thank you, Eve. Night.’

  I didn’t watch him walk away. But neither could I remember going up the stairs. I must have positively flown, because when I reached the flat I was out of breath. In the hall I let out one huge gasp: Ah!

  Chapter Sixteen

  That was a bitter-sweet Sunday. There was still no word from Ben, and it wasn’t till later that I found Charles had rung me from his car.

  He’d called at Cliff Mansions twice, apparently, but found me out – I’d driven over to Brighton to stop myself thinking about lunch at the Drages. Wild horses wouldn’t have dragged me there even with an invitation, but I couldn’t escape a writhing resentment that Charles would be at Sabine’s groaning board, complimenting her on her hospitality, joking with Martin and getting pleasantly tanked – as who wouldn’t with a handsomely-paid Marian to drive them home? I thought how nice it would have been if he’d simply bucked the engagement for me. But that was unreasonable, for the Drages were his friends and had done nothing, as far as he was concerned, to jeopardise the friendship. Also, he was a nice man with good manners and all the right instincts. If he had skipped lunch at the last moment and for no good reason, I might in my heart of hearts (a place I was becoming acquainted with) have thought less of him.