How had it all gone so terribly wrong?
He put his head in his hands. “Don’t go,” he mumbled.
“I’d better.” Her voice was shaky now and he looked up.
He saw her lip trembling and reached out his hand for hers. “I’m very, very sorry. I wish more than anything I could have the last minute back so that I wouldn’t say that. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right, I know. I know.”
“No you don’t know, Kit,” he said, and she saw he had tears in his eyes. “You don’t know. I’ve never felt like this before. I want you so much I can’t bear it.” She looked at him distressed. “Listen. This is the worst thing that could have happened. I just meant to go to a dance with you, to have a little fling if you felt like it. I didn’t mean all this.”
“All what?” She marveled at how calm-her voice was.
“All the way I feel. I suppose it’s love, I haven’t ever loved anyone before…but I’m so eager to see you and to know what you’ll say…and to touch you and see you laugh…” His words came tumbling out. “Is that it, do you think?” he asked her. He really wanted to know.
“Is that what?”
“Is that love? I didn’t love anyone up to now, so it’s hard to recognize.”
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “If that’s truly the way you feel then it might be.”
“And you?”
She had forgotten her coat now, now they talked as equals. “I suppose it’s the same, I didn’t mean this to happen either. I thought, I thought…”
“What did you think? You started it, you asked me to the dance.”
“I know.” She was guilt-ridden. She could never tell him why she had done that. They were much too far in for that ever to come to the surface.
“So what did you hope? What did you think would happen?”
“That you’d be a nice man to join our party…which you certainly were…but I didn’t expect that I’d get so close to you, so involved.”
“You won’t say love.”
“I haven’t loved anybody either,” she said. “So I don’t know.”
“Aren’t we a real pair of cold zombies. Most people of our age have loved dozens of people.”
“Or what they say is love,” Kit said.
“Or what they think is love,” Stevie said. There was a silence. “I’m sorry for what I said,” he spoke up eventually.
“And I’m sorry for saying anyone would do, that was coarse.” She was apologetic.
“I’m not hungry anymore.” He pushed his plate away.
“Me neither.”
He was cheery and apologetic to the Chinese waiter, who seemed impassive about the whole business.
“They must be mystified by us, coming from as far away as they do,” Kit said.
“Anyone would be mystified by us,” Stevie said. He helped her into the tiny, low car.
He dropped her at her door and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll see you again during the week, I hope.” He looked at her, his face a question.
“I’d love that if you’re going to be up here again.”
“I’ll be here tomorrow night, for example.”
Her voice was still shaky, she didn’t know whether to make a little joke or not. “Lord, you’ll have the road worn out with all that traveling up and down.”
“I’m not going back tonight, I’ll wait until tomorrow night.”
“And who’ll mind the little shop?”
“Your stepmother. And we’ll start with a clean slate tomorrow.” He looked like an eager, nervous schoolboy. He reminded her of her brother Emmet when he was struggling and hoping that the right words would come out. Not like the great Stevie Sullivan.
“A shiny, clean slate,” she said.
“I love you, Kit,” he said, and turned the car and was gone.
Kit lay awake all night. There was a church clock that struck every quarter of an hour. She wondered why it hadn’t driven her mad before. She got up and made herself some tea. She looked around the room, small, untidy, but full of character, her good dresses hanging on hooks on the wall because the wardrobe wasn’t big enough. Shelves of books, a little homemade desk with a small red lamp. She had blue-and-white pillowcases. It would have been a lovely, warm, friendly place to have brought Stevie Sullivan back for the night.
As the clock chimed on and Kit sat hugging her knees she wondered why she had been so adamant. It wasn’t such a big deal. She had been the one making it so. Look at Clio, the skies hadn’t fallen on her. She sat there, confused and lonely. She wondered could she ever tell Lena about it. She might. Lena had been through all this kind of thing, she would know what it felt like.
LENA always organized the office party. That way she could keep control of it. It would be dangerous to leave it to one of the younger, giddier girls or even Jennifer. They would pick an entirely unsuitable place with a wrong atmosphere.
Lena always found a restaurant with atmosphere, somewhere that Italian, Greek, or Spanish waiters would join in the fun but where there would be no silliness.
She had seen office parties go so wrong. She had heard stories from the girls who had moved on from perfectly satisfactory posts only because they had been compromised or done the wrong thing at the annual office party.
“Lord, I’m so sensible,” Lena said to Grace.
“You look too good to be sensible.” Lena looked at Grace’s reflection in the mirror. They had been friends for too long to let Grace lie without being caught. The look of reproach was enough. Grace began to backtrack. “Too thin of course, too tired, but still good.”
“I’m a scrawny old turkey, Grace. I used to see them in Lough Glass, they were survivors. They looked so woebegone and bedraggled at Christmas no one would kill them. They escaped the oven year after year.”
“So will you,” Grace said tenderly.
“Not this year. No, the time comes for every old turkey, even if the bones only make soup.”
“Will you and Louis join us for Christmas dinner?” Ivy asked her on the stairs.
“You’re very good, Ivy.”
“That means no.” Ivy looked at her shrewdly.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I know you so well.”
“It doesn’t mean no, it means I don’t know.” There was a silence. “It sounds very rude.”
“No, love, it sounds very sad.”
“That’s exactly what it is, Ivy, very sad.” Lena walked up the stairs with a heavy tread.
Jessie Millar was spending the evening with her mother. Every Thursday she went around to Mrs. Park while Jim went to the Rotary Club. Every weekend they took her mother out to Sunday lunch.
Jessie Park’s life had changed in so many ways for the better the day that Lena Gray had walked in her door. She would do anything to help Lena through what was obviously some huge crisis. But Lena was so private she would freeze you out if you dared suggest that anything was wrong.
“I suppose it’s her husband,” Jessie said to her mother.
“It usually is,” Mrs. Park nodded sagely.
“I have to do something. I have to tell her that I’d do anything.”
“Well, if it is her husband what could you do, Jessica? Go and meet him and say, ‘You’re upsetting Mrs. Gray, desist this minute.’”
“No, but I could give her some comfort.”
Mrs. Park shook her head. “You could only tell her you are sorry for her. She’s a proud, confident woman, she wouldn’t want that.”
“She comes to see you from time to time, do you get any hint of anything…?”
The old woman was thoughtful. It was true that Lena Gray found time to call and see her at least once a month. She always brought some small useful gift, an airtight biscuit tin, a foot cushion, a cover for the Radio Times. It was amazing that such a busy career woman as Lena should make the time to visit her. But then Mrs. Park remembered that when she was young they used to say if you want somet
hing done ask a busy man. Woman in this case.
“She never talks about herself at all,” Mrs. Park said eventually.
“I know, but what do you think?”
“I think she has children, grown-up children of her own from a previous marriage.”
“Oh, that couldn’t be possible,” Jessie said.
“Why not?”
“Well, if she has, where are they? No normal woman would have children and leave them.”
“I wish it was an office lunch, not a dinner,” Jennifer complained.
“The lunch would go on all day…” Jessie said.
“Yes, I know. Wouldn’t it be marvelous, everyone going mad, and we’d get to know other tables having lunch…”
That was exactly what Lena had been trying to avoid, Jessie realized. At least at a dinner there was some end to the evening. People had to go for trains and buses. They weren’t left high and dry and drunk at five o’clock waiting for the pubs to open and to carry on the foolishness.
“We’re lucky we don’t have to pay for our party,” squeaked the new receptionist. “In the last place we all had to contribute.”
“Lena set that up years ago when she came first. She was always making little savings on this and that in a tin called Office Party.” Jessie remembered it with affection.
“Has she been here for years and years?” asked the receptionist.
“Eight or nine years, that’s all. But of course I can hardly remember what it was like before she came.”
“So you never knew her when she was young?” Jennifer said.
“Not really young, no.” Jessie shifted on her feet, annoyed by the dismissive ways of youth.
“I’d say she was a stunner,” Jennifer said. “She must have been to get that dreamboat she married.”
Jessie felt they were on dangerous ground now and wanted to move.
“Yes, I’m sure she had the pick of the bunch,” she said in a tone that brought the conversation to an end.
“We can’t persuade you to change your mind, Louis,” James Williams said.
“No, James. Many, many thanks for everything. I came here with nothing nearly a decade ago and I have the world at my feet now.”
“The Dryden didn’t give you that. You built it yourself. We’ll be very sorry to lose you.”
“Well, you know I’ll see you over the season. I won’t be off until we’ve New Year’s Eve well over us.”
“That’s good of you, that’s certainly a relief.”
“Come on, I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“And I imagine Lena is delighted to be going back to Ireland…I think her heart was always there despite her great success here.” The inquiry was made with a bland face and innocent eyes.
Louis Gray took a deep breath. “Ah James, now there’s something I have to tell you about that…”
For weeks she had taken work home and listened for his key in the door. At the sound she would slip off her glasses which made her older than ever, and sweep away the paperwork. She would get up to greet him, fresh and fragrant as she always was. Sometimes she would suggest he have a bath and that she’d bring him a drink.
She never asked where he had been or why he was so late. She knew that he would tell her one evening. Some warning had told her it would be tonight. Habits die hard. She put on her best cream blouse and her pencil-slim red skirt. She put a red glass necklace around her throat and then replaced it with a red scarf.
The scarf hid more of the lines, and anyway the red necklace had been bought in Brighton when he had said that one day he would buy her rubies.
She sat at her table for three hours.
But her eyes were too tired and her head too heavy to concentrate on any of the work she had brought home. Instead she waited and waited for the sound of his step on the stair. She had a bottle of wine in the fridge, and she had coffee at the ready. This was going to be a long night, they would need both.
When he came in she stood up. Her feet seemed stuck to the ground, she didn’t go toward him as she normally did. Instead her hand flew to her throat and fiddled with the red scarf.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said.
It had become an automatic greeting. Usually she said, “Well, it’s great to see you now.” Tonight she said nothing. She just looked at him. She knew her eyes were wide and staring as if she had never seen him before. She tried to relax the muscles of her face, but nothing would obey her.
“Lena,” he said. She still looked. “Lena, I have something to tell you.”
Ivy and Ernest were looking at television downstairs, but Ivy’s glance always went to her net-curtained door to see who went in and out. It was a habit that she could not give up, even nowadays when her tenants were respectable settled people who would not do a moonlight flit.
She saw Louis Gray come home, late as usual. But tonight he had paused on the stairs, where he thought he was unobserved. She saw him take deep breaths like someone gasping for oxygen. Then, as if he were still unable to catch enough air, he sat down on the step and let his head drop down to his feet. He must be feeling faint, she thought. Her instinct was to go out to see what was wrong. Perhaps he had been taken ill.
But then she remembered the cold, dead look in Lena’s face earlier in the day. This was the end of the way for them, Ivy knew it now. Eventually Louis recovered himself and went on up the stairs. Ernest was happily looking at the television set.
“I’ll get you a cup of tea,” Ivy said. She was restless now, she couldn’t concentrate.
“God, it’s great to be spoiled,” Ernest said.
It only seemed such a short time since Ivy had envied the young couple upstairs, the handsome young husband and wife who couldn’t wait to get their hands on each other. She felt life had passed her by and she felt foolish and dull in the light of their passion and love. Now she ached to give Lena, who had been such a good friend, a share of the peace and security she had with the man she had always loved.
She sat at the table. He had guided her there with his arms on her shoulders. She fought the urge to hold on to him and plead, assure him that it didn’t matter, he could have this other woman, whoever she was. Even if she was Irish and he had been looking at a hotel in Ireland with her. He could continue seeing her as much as he liked just as long as he didn’t leave home, didn’t leave Lena, his wife. Because she was his wife. He had said so over and over.
In everyone’s eyes they were man and wife. So that is what they were. But the words didn’t come. She sat and waited.
“I never wanted this to happen, Lena,” he said.
She smiled at him a vague half smile, like the one she used when she was at work. All it involved was a small readjustment of the muscles. She wondered why people didn’t teach it at school. It made you look such a good listener, alert, interested, receptive.
“We have always been utterly honest with each other.” He reached for her hand. Her hand was cold, but so was his. It must be taking something from him too.
“Yes, of course,” she said.
What did she mean by this? Been honest with each other, of course they hadn’t. He had betrayed her with who knew how many women. He had told her lie after lie about his activities. She had lied to him about Kit and the lifeline she had established to her daughter and the life of Lough Glass. And yet they sat in a flat in West London and pretended that they had always been honest with each other.
“So, because of that I have to tell you…that I’ve found somebody else. Somebody I really love.”
“But you really love me,” she said in a small voice.
“I know, I know. Lena, what I have for you is something special that will never change.”
“We’ve loved each other all our lives,” she said. It was not argumentative, or defensive. She was just stating a fact.
“That’s what I’m saying. Nobody could or indeed will replace what you and I had. It was strong and good and important.”
She looked at him.
These were mere lines he had learned for a play.
“But…?” she said, helping him on to the next bit.
“But…I’ve met this girl…” The silence must have been only for a few seconds. But after what seemed a long time he said, “I didn’t want it to happen, I wanted us to go on the way we were…but you don’t know when these things happen, you don’t invite them in, they just…” He was at a loss for words.
“Happen?” suggested Lena. She was not being ironic. She just wanted it to get to the bit where he said he was leaving. All the rest of it was unnecessary torture.
“Happen…” he repeated, unaware he had used the word so often himself. “And in the beginning it was just a bit of fun…you know, harmless…and then we knew…we knew that this was meant to be.”
“Meant to be…” She repeated his words again, without any intonation except that of someone trying to realize their importance.
“Yes, she never really loved anyone before…and she took some time to realize what it was…”
“And you, Louis?”
“Well, I had and did, so it was both easier for me and more difficult, if you know what I mean…” She nodded dumbly.
“So?” said Lena.
“So, it developed and we got further into it and it got to the stage where it was too late to go back…”
“Too late?”
“Yes, we both know now that this is what we want…and what we must take. She had no one to tell but her parents…I have to tell you.”
She looked at his face, sad to be causing such hurt to another. His handsome, loved face. And suddenly she knew why he was telling her, why he wasn’t just rushing off and coming back to be forgiven when it didn’t work out. The realization went right through her body causing her to shake.
“She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”