A New Map of Love

by Annie Murray

  ‘Now, Sylvia.’ He sat back and lit his pipe. ‘I’ve been keeping on for far too long. You must tell me about yourself. Do you live all alone?’

  Sylvia swallowed a mouthful of wine and carefully put the glass down, though she kept the stem nipped between her second and third finger. George saw a flicker of a sharp expression cross her face which he could not read, but in a second it was gone and the brown eyes seemed to fill with sadness.

  ‘Oh no, where I live is my mother’s house.’ She ran a red-tipped finger round the foot of the glass. ‘When David passed away . . .’ The napkin was hurriedly dabbed at her eyes. ‘The thing was, George, I couldn’t bear to be alone in our house. I just couldn’t stand it. And mother’s not too well. She needs help now and then. My sister Jean lives with her – she’s never married, you see. I didn’t really want to move in there. It felt like going back to being a child again. I didn’t like that. But I thought, why stay here feeling so lonely and upset when I could help my old mum? She needs me, George. And it’s important to be needed, isn’t it? Otherwise I feel as if my life’s not worth anything much at all.’

  ‘Oh my dear,’ George said, moved. The brittle person of a few minutes earlier had melted into this soft, vulnerable woman whose eyes were looking at him with sweet appeal. He shifted his foot forward again and felt her leg come to rest against his. ‘But I’m sure you are needed.’ He saw a chance to slip in the question he had been hoping to ask. ‘Did you and your – Lionel and David – did you not have any children?’

  The look of tragedy increased. ‘No. You see, Lionel and I didn’t want to bring a child into the world at the beginning of the war when things looked so dangerous and never knowing what was going to happen. And then of course it was too late . . . And David already had three . . . I would have loved to have children of my own – I’m quite a maternal person, George, you see.’

  George, gladly, did see.

  ‘But David didn’t want any more. In fact he was adamant. He’d had . . .’ Again her voice sunk to a whisper, ‘the operation.’

  George was startled. He had never yet met anyone who had admitted to having ‘the snip’.

  ‘I was very sad about it, but I could see how much his other children demanded of him. And he and I were so happy. Sometimes when a baby comes along it spoils everything. That’s what he said about his first wife anyway and I didn’t want it to happen with me. But I haven’t been a mother, George, and that’s a very hard thing for a woman.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it is.’ He thought of Win, knew she had mourned silently for her lack of children; as had he, in his way.

  ‘I’m so glad I’ve met you, George dear. One of those unexpected things.’ She laced her fingers together on the cloth. ‘I don’t expect much of life these days. But I sometimes feel as if I’ve had at least a taste of good things, even if they were all snatched away from me.’ She looked down, as if needing to gather herself to say something, before raising her head again. ‘We can be a little bit of a comfort to one another, can’t we, George?’

  She reached across the table between the glasses, her eyes never leaving his, as if inviting him to take her hand, which with his heart pumping hard, he did.

  ‘Let’s stop, George, shall we?’ Sylvia laid her hand on his arm as they drove back into town. ‘Just for a few minutes? Let’s walk by the bridge where we were the other night. It’s such a lovely evening.’

  ‘Well yes, all right.’ He braked in his parking spot. He felt carried along like a piece of willing flotsam on her will, and on the general alcoholic haze of the evening.

  The ‘desserts’, as Sylvia called them, were peach melba, followed by coffee and liqueurs – Cointreau for her, a generous Rémy Martin for him, along with a good plug of tobacco in his pipe. Long before he had seen the bill he knew this was by far and away the most expensive meal of his life. He imagined Win’s tight-lipped expression. But he felt defiant. He could afford it. Not every week, obviously, but this time. And there were other ways to live. Wasn’t he in search of a new life; new paths opening out in front of him? In between stirring coffee and sipping drinks, they had linked hands across the table, their legs pressed close. And now, walking under a new moon, he took her hand and rested it over his arm and at last something was openly acknowledged.

  They set off along the path beside the bridge. George’s mind was divided between the hazy, oceanic feeling he had of floating along on his own fate, and a piercing sense that everything was intensely heightened and vivid. The weight of Sylvia’s plump arm resting on his and the smell of her perfume awoke in him physical memories – the touch of a woman, scented, glorious in shape . . . Raw longing built in him, so intense that he could not distinguish between the emotional and the physical. He needed. He ached to fold his arms around this woman, to find his gaze met by hers.

  ‘So pretty, isn’t it?’ Sylvia said, stopping on the path. George hauled himself out of the cave of his desire to acknowledge that yes, the arches of the old bridge, the water rippling in the shreds of moonlight were indeed pretty, though pretty was not a word he would ever have chosen.

  She turned to look up at him. In this dim light, close as he was, he could only just make her out. Her eyes looked very large in the shadowy shape of her face. She was wearing her pale shawl thing over the green dress now.

  ‘I’ve never had an evening like this before,’ she said. ‘It’s the best of my life, George. I can hardly believe it. And it’s all thanks to you.’

  He was utterly taken aback by this admission, by the suddenly vulnerable tone in which she delivered it. How could this be – what of marvellous Lionel and my darling David? Surely she had had many glorious evenings?

  ‘You’re an absolutely lovely man, George.’ There was something mesmeric in the way she kept using his name. ‘I’m so glad I’ve met you. I thought my life was over, I really did. I feel like the luckiest girl alive.’

  A swell of gratification passed through him like a warming blush. He had done it right. She was pleased. And he was touched by her admission, by this sudden frailness which made him feel rather manly and rock-like.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it,’ he said.

  ‘Have you enjoyed it, George? I know you’re such a clever man and I’m just – well, you know. I’m just a little country girl, really. Not like you, working in London and travelling the world.’

  ‘Oh, I have. And you’re a dear,’ he added expansively.

  ‘Would it be wrong, d’you think . . . Oh dear.’ She turned her head away with a girlish giggle, then looked back at him. ‘I’d like to give you a kiss, George. After all, we’re hardly beginners, either of us, are we?’

  ‘No, well quite,’ he agreed, his blood pounding. ‘I’m sure that would be . . .’

  Sylvia’s lips met his before he could formulate anything sensible to say. He was pulled into the moist heat of lipstick and Cointreau and the electrical sensations produced by Sylvia’s fingers caressing their way along the back of his neck.

  6.

  When he opened the front door next morning to find Alan Day, Vera’s husband, waiting outside, George concluded for a few seconds that he was hallucinating. It was, he thought, just that his mind was scattered as a flock of startled pigeons. Yet, even as it struggled towards lucidity, he still felt that Alan did not belong on the doorstep at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. But this particular hallucination, unlike his high-voltage dreams about Sylvia Newsome, did not vanish as soon as he blinked.

  Alan was brown-eyed with well-defined cheekbones and trimmed black hair. His eyebrows were dark, questioning arcs. As ever he was dressed in black trousers and white shirtsleeves.

  ‘I just wanted a quick word with you, Mr Baxter, before the others get here.’

  He seemed nervous, a state which George found suddenly infectious. A tremor passed through his innards. What was this about? Why the early arrival – was it pistols at dawn, sort of thing? Surely – terrible dawning thought – Alan didn’t imagine
there was anything untoward going on between himself and Vera? Or was this all about fruit pies, or rather the sudden dearth of them in Alan’s previously well-regulated life?

  ‘Why don’t you step inside, Alan?’ he invited in a cordial tone.

  ‘No, it’s all right, Mr Baxter. I can say what I need to say just as well out here, man to man like.’

  This really was ominous. George waited in the doorway, thrusting his hands deep into his corduroys and did his best to appear amiably interested.

  ‘Thing is . . .’ Alan’s hands joined in the exploration of the interior of trouser pockets. He looked down at the doorstep. ‘It’s Vera.’ With a sudden outrush of passion, he pronounced, ‘She’s changing. She’s not like the girl I married any more.’ He looked up at George with terribly serious appeal. ‘D’you see what I mean, Mr Baxter?’

  George did, up to a point. ‘Well . . . Her hair looks a bit different. And I suppose she’s not making quite the same amount of pastry she was before,’ he ventured.

  Alan seized upon this evidence of fellow feeling. ‘Oh yes, there’s the pastry – but what I mean is, she’s getting above herself; selling this, bossing about that. Full of it, she is. All those’ – he paused to add a disgusted weight to his utterance – ‘pop songs she listens to.’ He shook his head in the face of this deviancy. ‘And there’s this girl she’s taken on! I mean, my Vera, hiring and firing right under your nose, Mr Baxter. That doesn’t seem right to me. Not right at all.’

  The girl in question appeared later that morning. Though George spent quite some time reassuring Alan that his wife had not turned into a power-crazed insubordinate, but that he had himself sanctioned the employment of Sharon Jenkins, he was still startled to encounter this young and – like her mother – glowering presence in his kitchen.

  He had been outside and was crossing the drive quickly to avoid Kevin and his, ‘Oh, Mr Baxter, can I come with you to another auction soon? Can I? Oh please!’ He knew he was going to cave in and let him sooner or later, but on this occasion, Clarence appeared in the doorway of the barn in his overall. He beckoned with a skeletal finger like the Grim Reaper. ‘Kevin – get in here, boy!’

  Rescued, as Kevin veered away, George hurried inside. As he did so he became aware, over the transistor’s mutterings, of Monty barking, somewhere at the back of the house. In the kitchen he saw a figure washing up at the sink who gave an overall impression of brownness: blouse with immensely strong-looking, tanned arms emerging from the sleeves, skirt, hair, shoes, all a variation on chocolate.

  ‘Ah, Mr Baxter.’ Vera was in there too. She had the presence of mind to click the radio off so they could hear each other. ‘This is Sharon. I’m just telling her what’s what. We’ve had to put Monty out in the garden though. He was bothering her.’

  George could hear his dog making affronted sounds beyond the back door. The brown apparition swivelled slowly round. Clamping her right hand to her waist, left leg crossed over right, she leaned back against the sink in a manner that could only be described as challenging. Like her mother Brenda, she had a short-bodied compactness which emphasized her chest. Sharon had a mane of very dense, curling hair, and dark, emphatic eyebrows. In fact everything about her was emphatic: the thick, pouting lips, the strong cheekbones and large eyes of some indeterminate colour which were fixed on him with what could only be interpreted as smouldering resentment.

  ‘Can’t work with that dog,’ she announced, in a voice surprisingly light for her build. ‘’E bothers me.’

  Monty let out a heartrending howl from outside.

  ‘Never mind – he can stay out there while you’re working,’ George said. He felt quite unnerved by the way the girl was glowering at him. It would take him weeks to get used to the fact that that was just the way her face was.

  ‘She’s just learning the ropes today, aren’t you, love?’ Vera seemed quite relaxed with her. ‘I’m going to show her everything this morning.’

  ‘I’ll just make a cup of tea and get out of your way,’ George said.

  Sharon turned slowly – he was also to learn that slow was her exclusive pace – back to the sink.

  When he escaped out to the back, Monty greeted him with hoarse jubilation as if, since breakfast, he had had a spell away at the South Pole.

  ‘Come on, old boy, we’ll go and sit in the shed. Don’t you worry, she’s only going to be here once a week.’

  Later, Vera reported that, though not the fastest thing on earth, she thought Sharon would do. And it would be twice a week.

  ‘She’ll learn,’ Vera said. ‘Slow but sure.’

  ‘She can’t be only seventeen, surely?’

  ‘Oh she is,’ Vera said. ‘Same age as Kevin. Would you believe it!’ She hovered, though all her work was done. ‘Off anywhere nice tonight, Mr B?’

  George realized he was being pumped for information. ‘No,’ he said, with an air of bemusement. ‘Why?’

  ‘I just wondered.’ Vera picked up her bag. ‘Oh –’ She turned back. ‘By the way – I suppose you managed to get that Mrs Linklater to pay her bill at last, did you?’

  ‘Ah – no, no,’ George said. He folded his arms, speaking gently. He didn’t want to sound as if he was blaming Vera. ‘We cleared the matter up. Said she paid up front. She was jolly nice about the fact that we’ve been pursuing her actually.’ He chuckled. ‘Even opened some champagne for me.’

  ‘Did she now?’ Vera was staring at him, unsmiling. ‘Well, I’ve got to hand it to her – I suppose you swallowed all that, did you?’

  George’s smile faded. ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Mr Baxter . . .’ Vera stepped closer. ‘That woman did not pay for what she bought. I was there. I remember. If she had, I would have written it down, like I always do. Have you ever known me not to write it down?’

  ‘Well, no . . .’

  ‘And she didn’t pay – so we’ll have to bill her again.’

  ‘Vera – we can’t,’ he said, appalled. ‘Not after yesterday. I mean it’s all over – really, I can’t possibly ask her again.’

  Vera stood with one hand on her hip, looking thunderous. ‘Funny how there’s one rule for the rich, isn’t it? Well, if that’s how you want it, I can’t argue.’

  George opened the door for her and watched her walk away down the drive in her smart suit and shoes. Did he imagine that she even walked faster these days? He felt a twinge of fellow feeling with Alan for a moment. Vera could be fearsome. But you can’t just hold someone back, he thought. I suppose I felt held back by Win. He remembered Maggie and wondered if married couples ever stayed long on the same level as each other. Keeping pace, that was the problem. He saw Vera disappear behind the trees edging his land and hoped she would not, in the long run, outpace Alan. He shook his head. He was going to have to write off the sale to the scheming Mrs Linklater.

  But closing the door, his mind was once more with Sylvia. Over and over again he replayed their kisses in his mind and felt weak with expectation. Two days he had to wait before he could see her again. Two whole days. He would have to work hard in the garden to distract himself.

  June

  Nine

  1.

  ‘Oh George, this is heaven!’

  Sylvia sat on the starboard side of the boat, gazing over the tranquil meadows near Day’s Lock with a rapturous expression. They had pootled north away from Wallingford, passing the Bridge Hotel – ‘Oh!’ Sylvia cried on seeing it, ‘that’s where we began, George, isn’t it?’ – towards Little Wittenham and the Clumps. Before they reached the lock, he cut the engine and let the boat drift into the reed-edged bank, the warm silence billowing about them, broken only by the anxious pipping of a moorhen. The sun was still burning off the haze and the fields seemed to exhale moisture and the pungent scent of elder-flower.

  George looked across at the twin hills with their dark crowns of trees. He felt blessed by the beauty of the landscape. And here was this heavenly woman beside him.

  He had left M
onty at home today. ‘Sorry, old boy – but you hate water anyway. And the womenfolk don’t really appreciate your disgusting habits.’ He bent to fondle the dog’s ears before he locked up. ‘You have a relaxing afternoon. Shan’t be too long.’ Monty, sprawled on his bed in the back room, looked up blearily from beneath crumpled brows, before abandoning himself to an afternoon of ease.

  ‘I thought we might have our picnic here,’ he said. The bags of food were stowed up towards the bow. ‘Seems a good place.’

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely,’ she agreed.

  George assessed the state of the pasture beside them. There were no swans about, but the grass was dangerously pock-marked with cowpats and there were sizeable thistles.

  ‘Stay in the boat, I’d say,’ he remarked.

  ‘I’ll see to the food,’ Sylvia offered, ever anxious to please.

  She was dressed today in a pair of calf-length navy trousers, striped sort of top like a burglar and black shoes with low heels. George took full advantage of the opportunity to drink in the shape of her as she eased herself forward and leaned to gather the bags. As she reached over, an ache spread through him again. Just come here and take me in your arms, woman. If only they could be inside somewhere for an afternoon of fleshy tenderness and release. All this necessary pursuit was rather tiring.

  ‘Ooof!’ she giggled. ‘Got it!’

  Righting herself, she shuffled onto the middle bench. He tried not to stare. The striped top, like most of Sylvia’s blouses, was cut low enough to reveal the cleft between her breasts and so was endlessly distracting.

  ‘I hope you like what I’ve brought, George,’ she said humbly. ‘I’ll have to learn what things you like, won’t I?’

  He found this sweetly disarming. She had insisted on bringing the picnic. ‘You’ve been so kind to me – it’s the least I can do. Oh, and look – I brought these for you-know-who.’