Fine, you declare, whatever your state of mind, whatever your physical condition. The decencies require this, not that you come clean and mention that you are bankrupt, on bail for assault or terminally ill.
Well, as it happens, Mr Chaundy, I am in profound distress because I believe that my daughter is about to suffer her husband’s serial infidelity. A man to whom, incidentally, she was introduced by myself. And my own husband was similarly inclined, so I am something of a connoisseur of the emotions aroused.
No, no … Fine, just fine.
Tomato purée, that was it. And fruit. And milk.
She phones Hugh, but encounters only the answering machine. He is not at the shop, either. Margery greets her with conspiratorial warmth. ‘He should be back soon, Mrs Carter. I’ll tell him you rang. He’s … well, he’s not really himself, between you and me. He’s all at sixes and sevens. It’s been a blow, this. Though one can’t but feel …’ She leaves something delicately unspoken. ‘He’s going to need his friends, Mrs Carter.’ A further implication is there, giving Pauline pause for uneasy thought.
And in an hour or so Hugh calls back. ‘Do you know any hymns?’
‘Mmn …’ says Pauline. Fight the good fight, she thinks. No, that’s the one for marriage services. ‘I’m not very strong in that area. Do you really need a hymn? Why don’t you just have some organ music?’
‘That’s a good idea.’ Hugh perks up. ‘Bach. Organ music is always Bach, isn’t it? I’ll tell them to do that. But there’s this address.’ His voice falls again. ‘Someone has to talk about Elaine. I suppose her brother might. The priest usually does, apparently. But …’
But in this instance what is he to say? What, indeed, is anyone to say? Pauline remembers the bright platitudes mouthed by clerics at the funerals of her parents, dutiful, well-meaning men who had never met the people in question and were concerned merely to provide a smoothly gift-wrapped occasion. ‘Don’t,’ she says. ‘Tell them you don’t want that either. Read something, instead. Read a poem. Did Elaine like poetry, ever?’
There is a silence. She feels Hugh rummaging in some unthinkable past, when Elaine was a whole woman. ‘Actually,’ he says, ‘we once went on holiday in France, and I remember walking on the beach one evening and she was reciting Keats. Something she’d learnt by heart at school. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”.’
‘There you are, then,’ says Pauline. ‘Read that.’
‘I could, couldn’t I?’ Hugh sounds encouraged. ‘And you’ll come on Wednesday?’ he goes on.
‘Of course.’
The days seem now to inch one into another. There is Saturday. There is Sunday. On Sunday evening the sky clouded over and the air thickened. Rumours of rain. But now it is Monday and the sun is out again, as ever.
This is the day on which Maurice will go to London, to return on Wednesday before Pauline herself leaves. Pauline had intended to stay clear of him until after his departure, but at breakfast time she is forced to visit when she finds that the postman has included with the mail that he has pushed through her door an envelope addressed to Maurice, which may or may not be of importance but decency requires that she hand it over before he leaves.
When Pauline enters the room she knows that they have had a row. They are silent now, but the air is loaded. It carries still the freight of whatever has been said and felt in here. The remains of breakfast are on the table, and Luke is clutching a piece of toast and making Luke-noises which seem to float free of the turbulence, the shock waves of anger and accusation and defiance. Teresa is ramrod stiff, her mouth a knot of distress. Maurice is tense, his face set in ill-temper.
Pauline hands him the letter. ‘This got put through my door by mistake.’
Maurice adjusts his expression, but not much. ‘Thank you, Pauline.’ He sees Teresa shoot a glance at the letter. ‘This is from a woman at the National Trust, supplying some figures for which I have asked. Do please read it if you would like to.’
Teresa freezes, and turns away.
Pauline goes. Shortly afterwards, from the tranquillity of her cottage, where the air is uncharged and the radio is quietly telling a short story, she hears Maurice’s car start up and then recede along the track.
Three hours later Teresa is composed, or nearly so. She comes over to ask if she might take Pauline’s car to go to the village shop. Luke is asleep. Could Pauline check up on him from time to time? Pauline replies that she will take some work over to Teresa’s sitting-room.
And thus she is going over a page of the North Sea oil manuscript when the phone rings.
‘Hello?’ says a male voice. Harry’s voice, as it happens.
‘Hello,’ says Pauline.
‘Teresa?’ says Harry tentatively.
‘No. It’s me – Pauline.’
‘Oh. Hello.’ This hello is different – it is a deft combination of greeting and a cautious testing of the waters. I should like to talk to you, it says – but will you talk to me? ‘I was just calling to fix up something with Teresa in London the week after next, when I’m over.’
‘And Luke.’
‘Right,’ says Harry hastily. ‘And Luke. How is Luke?’
‘Luke is just fine. Teresa’s out at the moment. Do you want to call her later?’
‘Sure,’ says Harry. ‘In an hour or so?’
‘She’ll be back by then. I’ll tell her.’
‘And how are you?’ says Harry.
‘Fine. Just fine. Well, I’ll tell Teresa …’
‘I suppose … I wondered if maybe you’d be around too, the week after next. Maybe we could have a meal? It would be great to see you.’
‘I’m afraid I shan’t be in London just then. I’m working down here the whole summer.’
‘Oh. No chance at all?’
‘No chance at all,’ says Pauline firmly.
When he has rung off she examines her own response to that voice. She probes and prods for a reaction. The blood running a little quicker? The heart beating a touch faster? No, she decides – nothing at all. What there is, though, is the slightest twinge of compunction. She has caught the disappointment in Harry’s voice and it has induced this flicker of guilt that she cannot – will not – oblige him. Dear God! she thinks. That it should come to this!
On Tuesday there is a hot dry wind. The wheat ripples – surges of light and dark that dissolve into one another. Flurries of dust scud along the track. From time to time Pauline meets up with Teresa and Luke in the garden. Luke is irritable – he has a rash and is out of sorts. He is demanding and consuming. Pauline watches Teresa’s patient attention to him, and sees that she is acting mechanically. Part of her is elsewhere – in attendance upon Maurice. She is watching him somewhere in London – seeing him, seeing her. Or perhaps she is replaying what has been said between Maurice and herself.
In the evening Pauline goes for a walk up to the top of the hill. When she looks back down at World’s End she sees it suddenly for what it is – a small grey building crouched in the valley, tucked against the backdrop of the field, isolated and intensely local. She thinks of its previous inhabitants, for whom the horizon stretched little further than the crest of this hill, the rim of the field and the curved sweep in front of her – trees, more fields, and the white flashes of car windscreens that mark the hidden road.
When she gets back to her study the answering machine is bleeping. Hugh has had second thoughts about the meeting place arranged for tomorrow evening and suggests an alternative – would she mind calling for him at the shop. Chris Rogers says, ‘Hi! Something to report. I’ll try you again.’
‘It’s me,’ he says, later. ‘Have you got a moment?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s just that she’s coming back. My wife. Tomorrow.’
‘Congratulations,’ says Pauline. ‘How’s your little boy?’
‘Oh, he’s fine. Whatever it was got better.’
‘Ah. So it’s not just maternal concern that’s bringing her back.
’
‘No,’ says Chris Rogers. ‘I’ve been doing some very intensive manipulation of various contacts and I’ve got us a house in downtown Swansea, at a rent I reckon we can just about manage.’
‘Well, good,’ says Pauline. ‘Excellent. So it’s the prospect of the bright lights, then?’
‘Actually, she says she’s been missing us.’
‘Of course.’
‘And I think being with her mother …’
‘That too. Didn’t I tell you?’
‘You did,’ says Chris. ‘You’ve been very supportive. Over and beyond the call of duty. I hope your authors aren’t all such pains in the neck.’
‘Mostly they only talk to me about semi-colons and the acceptability of the hanging participle. And they don’t write books about unicorns and werewolves.’
‘Ah, that,’ says Chris. ‘I was just coming to that – to say that now I’ll be able to get down to the rewriting of that chapter.’
‘Delighted to hear it.’
‘So I’ll be in touch. Sorry to have interrupted your evening, but I felt sort of celebratory.’ He is struck suddenly by a thought. ‘All this time I have no idea if you … I mean what your own arrangements …’
‘I live alone,’ says Pauline. ‘My period of marital crisis is long done with. Water under the bridge.’
‘Oh,’ Chris sounds embarrassed. Chastened, maybe. ‘I’m sorry. I thought perhaps …’
‘So I’ll look forward to hearing from you in due course, with the revised werewolves,’ says Pauline. ‘And in the mean time take my advice and make much of your wife.’
‘Don’t wait for Maurice to get back,’ says Teresa. ‘Go whenever you want to.’ It is Wednesday morning and she has come to Pauline’s door early, with Luke astride her hip.
‘Well …’ Pauline is hesitant. ‘When do you think he’ll be back?’
‘Lunchtime, he said. I’ll be all right.’
Teresa’s face is pinched, her eyes dark-circled. Pauline reads there the sleepless night, the ugly scurrying thoughts.
Luke beams suddenly in belated greeting. ‘Da,’ he says to Pauline – untroubled, ecstatic.
‘I’ve just made coffee,’ says Pauline. ‘Come on – it’ll perk you up.’
Teresa walks into the kitchen. She stands there, chewing her lip. ‘I suppose you know,’ she says.
Pauline nods.
‘Before I did, probably.’
‘Look,’ says Pauline, ‘this isn’t necessarily …’
Teresa sits down. ‘I will have that coffee, please.’
Pauline pours coffee into flowered mugs. Sunshine drenches the room. Luke is squatting peaceably on the floor, closely examining a bit of fluff. Somewhere, the combine is already at work.
‘All last night,’ says Teresa, ‘I was thinking, maybe he’s in bed with her right now. I imagined to myself how they’d have worked it – she’d have told James she had to go and visit a relation or something. I rang at eleven and he wasn’t there, not that I really expected him to be. He’d said he was going to have dinner with a guy I don’t know. So I supposed he was really with her. I thought about ringing James, with some excuse or other, to see if she was at home.’ Teresa sees Pauline shrink. ‘No, I didn’t do it. I just thought about it, for hours. I’ve no idea if James knows. I suppose he will eventually.’
Luke has discovered Pauline’s spectacles. She removes them and distracts him with an apple.
‘I never imagined anything like this could happen,’ says Teresa.
‘No one does.’
‘It’s like being kicked in the stomach.’
‘Look,’ says Pauline. She begins again: ‘It may well be that …’
‘Oh, it’s true all right. I picked up the other phone once and he was talking to her. I knew then, when I heard how their voices sounded. I’ve seen the way they look at each other. They aren’t going to be coming here any more, incidentally – her and James. Maurice says.’
‘No. I see. You’ve … talked to Maurice, then? What else does he say?’
Teresa’s mouth tightens. She stares over Pauline’s shoulder and out of the window. ‘Maurice doesn’t say much. He implies that I am paranoic and possessive. He doesn’t say they are and he doesn’t say they aren’t. He shrugs and steps aside. He gets angry. I am made to feel … unreasonable.’ She stares at Pauline. ‘How is this possible?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Pauline. But she does.
‘Maurice says things like, “I wonder why you’re reacting like this.” He says, “I thought you liked James and Carol.” He looks at me as though I had been listening at keyholes or reading other people’s letters. He walks out of the room. And then later it is as though nothing had happened. He talks about other things, as though nothing were wrong. He is … affectionate.’
‘I see,’ says Pauline. Yes, that’s how it goes.
‘I don’t know where I am. I begin to think it’s all in my head. And then I hear something, or see something, and I know it isn’t.’
Luke has bumped himself on the table. He starts to whimper. Pauline picks him up and consoles. This saves her from having to say anything. And she has nothing to say, in any case.
Teresa stares at Luke, but she does not seem to be seeing him. ‘I feel as though I’ve been dropped into a black pit. I had no idea you could feel like this. Right at this moment I wish …’ She looks away, cuts herself off. Her mouth tightens again.
Right now you wish you’d never met Maurice, never married him. You would even wish Luke back into non-existence, to be released from this. ‘So do I,’ says Pauline. ‘I wish that too. All except for …’ She gets up, holding Luke, and dumps him on Teresa’s lap. ‘We’ll stop talking about it – this is doing no good to anyone. Drink some more coffee.’
There they sit, in the World’s End kitchen – together, apart, and elsewhere. Teresa is in London, stalking Maurice, and she is in last week before that and the one before that – interpreting a glance, replaying a conversation. Pauline too is tapping in to other times, other places. Only Luke is here and now, lurching about the room to investigate the fringe on the rug, a feather, a matchstick, a sunbeam.
16
Follett Rare Books is closed when Pauline arrives at six-thirty. Hugh will be in the office at the back: she is to ring the bell. She pauses to glance at the window – a display of first edition children’s books with Arthur Rackham and Dulac illustrations and another of early-nineteenth-century topographical literature – and sees that in fact Margery is there, who looks up and comes at once to the door.
‘He got caught by a client, Mrs Carter, so I stayed on to let you in. It looks as though he can’t get rid of him.’
‘Perhaps we should rescue him by pretending I’m another client.’
Margery seems doubtful. No, thinks Pauline. I don’t look the part – no raincoat, no shabby briefcase. ‘Plenty of time. Was yesterday … all right?’
‘It was nicely done, as these things go.’ The discreet reservation in Margery’s tone conveys a whole scenario. Pauline sees the tiny congregation in a crematorium chapel, the fervent display of flowers. She hears the emollient language of the ritual.
Margery sighs. ‘Anyway, it’s over now. He’ll be relieved.’ It is not clear if she is referring to the funeral or to something more general. She is a woman in her early fifties, small and dapper, always clad in a neat but self-effacing suit or dress. It occurs to Pauline that she has no idea of Margery’s personal circumstances. Is she widowed or separated? Neither? She is patently attached to Hugh, but with the devotion, it has always seemed, of one who is a natural amanuensis. She runs the business when Hugh is out of the country, is always at his elbow with deft reminders. Hugh has depended on her for years. And what has she felt for him, all this time? Pauline looks at Margery with a new awareness.
‘He’s held up well,’ says Margery in a lowered voice, with a glance at the door to Hugh’s office. ‘I’m afraid it may hit him harder in the next week or two. He
’s going to need support.’
‘Yes,’ says Pauline. ‘I’m glad he’s got you here, Margery. I know you’ve been a terrific help.’
Margery gives a small shrug, which seems to imply that this is not worth mentioning, or that it is what she is paid to be in any case. ‘He deserves a break, poor man. I’d like to think he might have a happier time.’
‘So would I.’
‘Quite.’ Margery has sat down at her desk and pulls out a chair for Pauline. Her glance is both cautious and a touch severe. Don’t mess with me, it seems to say. Pauline’s new awareness is further sharpened. ‘I know you’re one of his closest friends, Mrs Carter, so we both want the same thing for him, I’m sure.’ She breaks off as Hugh’s door opens and Hugh emerges with a Japanese man, whom he escorts into the street with an apologetic nod at Pauline.
‘Well, I’ll be off now,’ says Margery. She collects her coat and bag. ‘I’ll leave him in your hands, Mrs Carter.’ She pauses at the door, where Hugh has disengaged himself from the Japanese, and has a brief subdued exchange with him before she lets herself out and clicks away down the street. She is a woman who always wears high heels.
‘Sorry about that,’ says Hugh. ‘Nice people to do business with, Japanese, but you both have to spend so much time being polite that it all takes twice as long. Margery said she’d look after you.’
‘She has. Did he buy anything?’
‘Oh, this and that,’ says Hugh vaguely. ‘They’re all into botanical stuff at the moment and I’m not up in that. Shall we go? I’m desperate for a drink. I thought we’d eat Italian, if that’s all right with you.’
In the restaurant he disposes of a Campari in a few gulps. ‘I’m going to have another, I’m afraid. I’m not usually like this, am I? Do you think I’m going to turn into an old soak?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. You’ve had a rough week, that’s all.’
‘Too right.’ He looks suddenly weary, wipes a hand across his face. ‘Well, it’s over now …’ He is silent for a moment. ‘Anyway, this is a treat. Thank you for coming.’