'Yes. Somewhere dim and distant,' he said, smiling into my eyes. Maybe that explained why I did not take to him. I did not take to Landseer's work, either.
'I'm just off, actually,' he said. 'Jill, let's talk some more about the matter. I'm sure it will be fine.' And he left.
I raised an eyebrow at Jill.
'Business,' she said shortl
y. 'He runs an organic shop not far from here. He's opening another further south shortly.' 'Ah,' I said. 'Good for you.'
'What did you think of him?' she asked, which seemed a funny question.
'Can't say I took to him much, not that that matters. Seemed just a bit too oily - I can't explain. Anyway, it's lovely to see you.' I went over and gave her a kiss. I sensed that she was not her usual friendly self.
'Jill,' I said, worried, 'are you all right?' The sparkle had left her eyes and her cheeks were no longer blooming.
'Oh yes,' she said, passing a hand across her forehead. 'Just a bit tired, that's all.'
'Simon sends his love,' I said. 'I'm glad he's not here. Gives us a chance to talk.'
But if I was expecting anything but the most superficial conversation, I was disappointed. Jill seemed distracted and ill at ease. Occasionally I saw a look of such misery on her face that I was reminded of the woman sitting in the car outside the tube at Holland Park the night I walked back with Saskia. Later, when we were sitting with our gin and tonics, lamps lit, fire burning, David yet to arrive, I asked her what was the matter. But she only muttered something about the business. My attempts at sympathy won only a dismissive shrug. 'I don't much care, to be honest,' she said, and put another log on the fire. She moved like an old woman - the pink-cheeked sparkler who had greeted me earlier had vanished. I watched her go back to her chair and sink into it gracelessly. Even her drink was scarcely touched.
'Jill?' I said, leaning forward. 'What is it?'
She managed a smile and squeezed my knee. 'Oh, I'm
sorry'
she said. 'Just a bit out of sorts. Put it down to hormones.' She laughed ruefully. 'Or lack of them.'
'Is that truly all?'
She waved her arm dismissively. 'Oh yes, I'm sure it is. And the fact that Sidney Burney is leaving for pastures new.'
'Sidney?
Surely he's Mellors and will stand by you for ever?'
She shook her head.
'I always thought he loved you.' I laughed and sipped my drink. 'I always entertained great hopes of a tryst among the forget-me-nots for you two.' But if I had hoped to make her laugh like she used to, I was impressively wrong.
'Don't joke about it, Margaret,' she said tersely.
I looked at my glass, puzzled and a little hurt. But not half as hurt, I was aware, as she. Could she really care that much about one employee - even of such long standing - leaving for another job?
'I suppose he was something of a mainstay here. Why's he going? Can't you give him more money or something?'
'You're damn right he was the mainstay,' she said viciously. 'Everyone knew that. It's all just one big fucking betrayal.'
Jill? Swearing? Jill with tears running down her cheeks? It had to be hormones. I mean, Sidney Burney was a good worker but he wasn't indispensable - especially not with the unemployment situation. This reaction had to be due to something else, and hormones seemed as likely a cause as any. What a shame hormones are. Nasty little things - they cause nothing but trouble while you've got them and then suddenly, like careless children, they leave home and never come back.
'Have you thought about HRT?' I said.
She laughed bitterly. 'Head Replacement Therapy, you mean?' She got up and pushed at the log with her toe. It rolled into the grate and she swore again. I picked up the tongs and chucked the log back on the fire.
'There,' I said. I squatted beside her and gave her the untouched drink. 'Have a swig. It might soothe the savage breast.'
She took it but her eyes were far away, staring into the fire, miserable again.
'How could he do it?' she said.
'Well, presumably he'll work out his notice.'
'What?' she said, clearly not understanding.
'Sidney. He'll have to work out his notice before he goes.'
'Oh, him,' she said. She rubbed her hand across her face. 'Oh, I'm not bothered about
him.'
Which left me in a curiously confused state. Usually David's presence inhibited our conversation, but that day I was glad when he came home.
At last Jill seemed to rally a little. We ate supper by the fire on trays and the three of us chatted about this and that. Strangely it was David, not Jill, who asked how I was getting on in my 'love life', as he put it and so I rattled away about all the things we had done. I hoped the tale would take Jill's mind off her own troubles and I tried to make it as funny and romantic as I could, but she went to bed early saying she had a headache. Only as she got up to go did she give me a real hug; it felt as if we were bidding each other adieu for the last time rather than just saying goodnight.
'I've put you back in the little room,' she said. 'After all, you won't be needing a double on this trip, will you?'
I wondered if Oxford and I had transgressed in some way. There was a definite edge to her tone which made me feel uneasy. I too went to my room shortly afterwards. In the kitchen, while we cleared up the supper things, David asked me how I had found Jill.
'Hormonal,' I said. 'Or that's what she seems to think.'
He breathed a sigh and looked, I thought, relieved. 'Ah,' he said. 'Is
that
what it is?'
Somehow I felt I was letting my sex down. Hormones were so easy to impugn, but I really didn't know what else to say. David was clearly relieved by the suggestion, and maybe it was so. I couldn't think of anything else that would make my usually readable friend so upset over something like Sidney Burney.
As I lay in bed,
1
tried to read but could not stop my mind wandering. I wanted to talk to Oxford about it all, a foolish wish under the circumstances.
Jill
was the one I always talked to. I was sure it would be fine again in the morning. I snuggled down, pleased to be on my own again in my familiar little bed. It belonged to my real self, part of my private history, and was nothing to do with this temporary coupledom I had created.
I awoke to find my room bathed in bright sunlight - a cheering sensation in dark winter days - and I got up immediately to make tea and take
it
back to bed. I knew the ritual well enough. I would lie in bed sipping my tea and at some point Jill would appear in her old white towelling robe and squeez
e in beside me with her coffee.
She would say, 'Ugh! How can you drink that stuff?' and then we would put our worlds to rights - or somebody else's - talking in low voices until David called out that it was time for breakfast. The day would then unfold with nothing planned except, perhaps, a dinner party in the evening. With the children away the house was much more silent - something I had not noticed last time, I suppose, because Oxford and I filled up the space. Of course, Jill must be missing the old routine like crazy - the large teenagers sitting around in the kitchen, some new girlfriend on the telephone for Giles, the frantic 'Will you be in for supper tonight?' and 'Are you coming home?' All that change, and hormones too? Oh, come on, Margaret, I said to myself, it's no
wonder
she's feeling the strain.
So I waited. Eventually I heard someone padding down the stairs and into the kitchen. Soon I expected to smell the aroma of good coffee and to greet my morning visitor. I lay back, closed my eyes and let my mind drift pleasantly. I was glad, again, that I was up here on my own, glad that I had not turned myself into part of a couple permanently. Times such as this were infinitely precious. This is what you lose, I told myself, when you yield up to a partnership that engulfs.
I waited until my little yellow pot of tea was empty and cold. No Jill. Eventually I went down to the kitchen with my tray and found a note on the table to both David and me. 'Had to go out,' it said. 'Will be back at lunchtime. Business. See you one-ish. Jill.'
So much for the sisterly confessional.
David asked me politely if I would like to do anything in particular, but I could tell he hoped I would say that I was fine. So I did. I went for a walk but only a short one. The fields were depressingly empty and the air was too cold. Back indoors I relit the fire. As the kindling began to crackle and the small logs settled themselves into the blaze, I sat back on my haunches and felt pleased with myself. Building a good fire contains a primal satisfaction, I suppose. I watched to make sure it had caught properly and then stretched out on the settee and began to read Ovid. It was no hardship to me to be on my own for a while - it only becomes hard when you are lonely inside, and that I never would be. I was reading the
Cures for Love -
the vicious antidote he produced after the
Amores.
Aim for a glut of passion: glutted hearts break off liaisons; When you feel you can do without it, still hold on. Till you are fed up to the back teeth, nil love chokes on abundance. Till you're sick at the very sight of her house
...
Poor Ovid. How very hurt he must also have been by that unsatisfactory four-lettered phenomenon. His words betrayed a bitterness that made me shiver as I reread it, despite the crackling warmth from the fire and the snuggle of cushions.
We hope to be loved, so postpone the final break off
Too long: while our self-conceit still holds
We're a credulous lot. Don't believe all they tell you (what's
more deceptive Than women's words?)
'Why not
men's,
perhaps?' I crowed, and shut the book firmly. Same old story. Ovid began so well with all that lovely stuff about seduction, fun, love, sex, affection, and ended in a welter of bitterness and pain and regret. 'I am right, I am right,' I found myself saying as I went into the kitchen to start making lunch.
There was bread, cheese and soup. I called up to David, who was in his study, that I would start without him if he preferred and he came thumping down the stairs looking embarrassed. 'Really,' I said, 'I don't mind at all if you've got work to do. I'm perfe
ctly
happy and content pottering.' He looked relieved. Never ask a chap to sit around the kitchen making idle conversation while you get on with something domesticated - it just makes them squirm. It didn't bother Oxford because we were just playing at domesticity, so it was fun. For real, it becomes too intimate an occupation for most.
Jill got back late - nearer two than one - and she looked pink-cheeked and sparkling-eyed again. Her old self plus another ten degrees. She hugged me. 'Have I been completely horrible to you?' she said. She hugged me some more. 'Sorry.' And she bit into a spring onion with a relishing crunch.
I asked if she had dealt with the problem of Sidney satisfactorily.
'What?' she said abstractedly. 'Oh,
yes.
It was nothing, really. I don't know why I let it get to me. I've just been over to see - ' She swallowed. 'Well, anyway, I've just sorted the whole thing out.'
'So he's staying?'
'Oh, no. He'll go. Charles really needs him.' She stopped, anxiously. 'You remember Charles?' I nodded.
'And there'll be another bus behind - like we used to say in the old days.'
That was about the sum total of old days' talk that weekend. Jill's mood went up and down several times and I couldn't get close. On Sunday morning I found her singing in the kitchen at about eight, already dressed and making a demented mess and noise with two mixers going. She said she was experimenting in making cheesecakes for the new organic shop and would take them over there later. They had apparently supplied her with the cheese and if it was successful she would produce them on a regular basis. David, who peevishly appeared shortly after me, told her in no uncertain terms what unsound business it was, and how foolish it was to take on new commitments when she had so much else to do. She tapped him playfully on the nose with a spoon - to his fury and my amused amazement - and said that he was only jealous because she was able to diversify. He went off shaking his head.
I
made my tea, took it back to bed, and afterwards had a long bath. When I returned to the kitchen the cheesecakes were all laid out on trays ready to be dispatched. They looked excellent and I congratulated her. 'I never even knew you could bake,' I said.
'You never know
what
you can do until you try,' she replied happily. 'And now I'
m going to take them over there,
They're open today.'