Less than half a mile down the road, in the school forecourt, Louis is parking up his bike. He stretches – it’s been a long journey – and wonders how best to proceed. Suddenly he’s not so sure. It’s quiet, so the children must be in lessons. Should he walk straight into her classroom and surprise her there? Should he announce himself to someone, and then sit in some kind of staff room and wait for her? Neither option seems quite right, and Louis finds himself asking why, in all the days and weeks he’s had to think about this very particular moment, it has never occurred to him to come up with a plan.
He takes off his helmet and saunters round to the back of the building, clanging the playing-field gate as he goes. The windows at the front of the school are seven or eight foot off the ground. He’d been hoping the windows on the other side might be lower but they aren’t. He considers shimmying up the drainpipes. They look sturdy enough. And then maybe peering through each window until he finds her.
But he needs a smoke first. He’s been five hours on the road without a break and now it comes to the moment, he
discovers to his surprise that he’s nervous. Louis is hardly ever nervous. He settles himself on the log which had previously served as Oliver Adams’s throne, rests a foot on one knee and rolls a cigarette.
It’s a grey, drizzly afternoon, but it doesn’t matter, Louis thinks, as he pulls on that first drag. Nothing matters. He’s going to climb the drainpipe. He’s going to tap on the window. He smiles, allowing himself to imagine her expression, the struggle on her face between annoyance and amusement and pleasure. He imagines her, trying to keep it all together in front of the children, desperately trying not to laugh…And then maybe she’s going to run out of the classroom—And she’s going to—They’re going to—But it doesn’t matter anyway, because they have all summer. They have the rest of their lives. Nothing is going to dampen his spirits today.
‘Excuse me. Can I help you?’ He looks up with a start to see Robert, half-running across the playing field towards him. Robert’s face is rigid with the effort of appearing calm. He is trying to smile.
‘Hi there!’ says Louis pleasantly. ‘I was just smoking a cigarette here, hope you don’t mind. It’s a heck of a journey from London, isn’t it? I’d forgotten how damn far it was. I’m Louis, by the way. Old friend of Fanny’s. You must be…’ Louis’s eyes flicker over the shiny blond bob, the beard, the roll-neck jersey, and settle briefly on the open-toed sandals. He grins. ‘You must be…Robin Grey, am I right? Fanny’s told me a lot about you!’
Robert White isn’t sure how to deal with this. He is torn between relief that Louis probably isn’t, after all, a suicide bomber; jealousy that Louis probably is Fanny’s lover; offence that Louis has confused his name; and delirium that Fanny has ever mentioned him at all. He struggles for a moment to come up with a response.
Silence. Louis waits, confused. ‘You are Robin, aren’t you? I’m not wrong. You teach the other class. The little ones.’
‘Actually, I’m Robert,’ says Robert, still trying to smile.
‘Robert. I am sorry. Of course. Robert Grey.’
‘Robert White.’
‘Robert White!’ Louis knocks the palm of his cigarette hand against his forehead, sprinkling ash on to his blond fringe in the process, and leaving it there. ‘Stupid of me. Of course. Sorry. And I’m Louis, old friend of Fanny’s,’ he says again.
A mini stand-off. Louis waits for Robert to say, ‘Ah! Louis! Not
the
Louis!?!’ And when Robert doesn’t, when Robert’s lips purse and his head tilts in affected curiosity, as if the name means nothing to him, Louis feels a little thud of disappointment. ‘Fanny and I,’ Louis says, to cover the unkind silence, ‘we go back a long way. We’re very old friends.’
‘Yes, you said.’
‘I’m here to surprise her. She doesn’t know I’m coming.’
Robert knows exactly who Louis is. Of course. He’s heard all the gossip; heard in graphic detail from Linda Tardy about the moment Louis appeared in the village hall. He was burrowing his lips into Fanny’s hair when she was calling his name into her mobile. ‘
Louis isn’t here,
’ Robert had said. ‘
I’m here. Robert’s here…
’
More silence. Now they are both here, and Robert feels shrivelled and provincial beside him. And angry. Linda Tardy, Robert remembers, had described Louis as ‘ever such a good-looking chap. Gorgeous, really.
American
.’ But Robert, half-winded by his opponent’s god-like grace and sensuality, notes bitterly that the woman did not even begin to do him justice.
Louis, with amiability dripping from every perfect limb, smiles expectantly. It occurs to him vaguely that Robert might be a little backward.
Finally Robert says, ‘You shouldn’t be smoking, you know. Not here. It’s not permitted. Apart from anything, it’s a bad example for the kids.’
‘For the kids!’ Louis laughs aloud. ‘You think they haven’t seen a man smoking before?’ But he takes only one more drag before flicking the end on to the damp grass.
‘Where did it land?’ Robert scours the ground, pounces on it. ‘It’s a bad example for kids,’ he repeats, churning up the mud, ‘it’s bad for your health, and it’s a serious fire hazard. If I had my way it would be illegal.’
Louis doesn’t seem to be listening. ‘I was actually planning to climb up the drainpipe there, and tap on her classroom window,’ he says with a laugh, ‘but something tells me you wouldn’t think that was such a cool idea.’
Robert, not amused, looks up from what’s left of the butt end and shakes his head.
‘So, er, perhaps you can just point me in her direction. Then I could—’
‘No.’
‘No?’
Robert casts around for a reason; can’t believe his luck when he falls upon it. ‘Fanny’s not here! She’s gone out!’ he says triumphantly. ‘She’s not on the premises.’
‘Oh. Where is she, then?’
‘She rushed out at lunch-time because…Because…’ Robert remembers that he doesn’t know quite why she rushed out. ‘She rushed out at lunch-time,’ he repeats slowly, and finally he smiles. ‘Well, you know Fanny, Louis. Rushing here. Rushing there. You know what she’s like.’
Louis waits. ‘She’s gone?’
‘That’s what I’m saying.’
‘So, where’s she gone?’
Robert smiles mistily. ‘Never stops, does she? I suppose we both know what she’s like.’
‘Yeah. I suppose so. So where’s she gone?’ he asks again.
‘Pardon?’
‘She’s not ill?’
‘Ill? Of course not. She’s fine. I mean…’ He glances at Louis slyly. ‘I mean, it’s not that she’s ill. It’s just – a
thing
.’
‘What “
thing
”?’
‘Look, if she hasn’t already told you—’
‘Of course she’s told me.’ But Louis’s beginning to grow worried. ‘What are you talking about?’
Robert has no idea. Not an idea in his head of what he’s talking about, not an idea of anything except that he wants Louis to go away, quickly, before Fanny sees him here, looking so flamboyantly, disgustingly handsome. And yet…one way or another he can’t help noticing that this nonsensical exchange is having an excellent effect on his opponent. Robert feels, from the depths of his despair, a small flicker of hope. Louis is a little jealous of him.
‘I’m very sorry,’ says Robert with a burst of new confidence. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. But I thought you said you were friends.’
‘We are. Bloody well friends. And you haven’t said anything. Tell me. Is there something wrong with her?’
Robert looks squarely at Louis’s left shoulder. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her,’ he says. ‘She’s as healthy as any other thirty-something lady, I should imagine. But she’s not coming back to school this afternoon, OK? And I should be getting back to my class. And for security reasons, which I’m sure you can appreciate, I’m going to have to request that you leave.’
‘But where is she?’
Robert hesitates. ‘Look. What I can tell you,’ he says, as if he’s doing Louis an enormous favour – and then stops. What can he tell Louis? Nothing. That he desperately needs
time to think. That he desperately wants Louis to go away and preferably die and certainly never come back. Nothing else. ‘I can tell you that Fanny will be at home at four. She will be back home by four,’ he says at last. ‘You know where she lives, I suppose?’
Louis nods, slightly irritably.
‘Why don’t you come round about fourish, then?’
‘
Come
round?’ repeats Louis.
Had he really said that? Oops. Stroke of luck! Robert sniggers. ‘And I promise, I shan’t breathe a word. OK? Top Secret. It’ll be a surprise.’
Louis is certain of very little after his meeting with Robert – where Fanny is or why or, more to the point, what the relationship is with her weird, lanky, anti-smoking deputy. But he’s still keen, if he can help it, to surprise her with his arrival, because he loves it when her face lights up. He decides to hide his bike in the car park behind the Fiddleford Arms, which he needs to drop in at anyway, to pick up his cottage keys.
What, exactly, Louis wonders, as he pulls off his crash helmet, had the lanky deputy guy Robert – or Robin (Louis’s already forgotten which) – what in hell had he meant when he said ‘come around’ at four o’clock? Were they
living
together? Louis tries to dismiss it. Fanny may have hooked up with some geeks over the years. But Robin Green? Robert. Grey. Green? Fuck. Whatever he was called. Even at her most lonesome, at her most torridly, outrageously bloody lickerish…It wasn’t impossible.
He tugs distractedly at the pub’s side door, deep in troubled thought, and heads towards the bar.
Inside is warm and welcoming, imbued with a sort of low-key liveliness. A fire burns in a giant grate in the middle of the room, and everywhere smells of old wood and smoke
and fresh draught beer. As he leans, waiting to be served, Louis very much intends to resist the temptation of ordering himself a pint. He needs to stick to his original plan. Or what’s left of it. And on this occasion he’s only come to the pub to pick up his new keys. He needs to buy some food at the post office, if it’s open, check out the cottage, maybe open a few windows, unpack, make up a bed, and find a map because he’s actually got a job tomorrow: he’s meant to be miles away in somewhere called Crediton, photographing a mystics’ herbal festival. By which time it will be—
‘No, David. Darling. Don’t be flip.’ A husky female voice, brisk with irritation, rises above the general hubbub, interrupting Louis’s train of thought. He turns idly towards it: the woman looks a little bohemian, in her mid-forties, dressed in diaphanous white, with long white-blonde hair and big panda eyes enhanced with heavy, smoky make-up. Her face is slightly puffy but Louis, who (being an artist) studies faces more closely than most, notices immediately how appealing she almost still is, and how stunning she must have been once. ‘It’s easy for you,’ she’s saying. ‘You can
swish
off back to London in your marvellous car and forget all about it. But you’re my
bloody agent!
So where does that leave me?’
The middle-aged man sitting at the table in front of her looks at his watch. He is embarrassed. He hadn’t realised that Kitty Mozely, who’s not produced a piece of work in nearly seven years, still considers herself one of his clients. Had he realised, of course, he wouldn’t have dreamt of dropping in on her. But this morning, on the third and final day of what was turning out to be quite a lonely driving holiday in the West Country, he had remembered that she lived nearby, and he’d had a flash of her in her golden days, when they’d both been at Oxford and for a
month or two – or maybe a fortnight, but anyway it was a bloody good fortnight – Kitty had allowed him to share her bed.
He’d headed for Fiddleford, stopped at the pub for directions and arrived at her cottage unannounced, brimming with warmth and goodwill. The look of rage she gave him when she came to the door, still in her dressing gown, had almost – very nearly – made him turn on his well-shod heel and run.
He hadn’t. Actually, he’d taken pity on her. He’d taken her to lunch back at the Fiddleford Arms, and had been listening to her berate him for well over an hour by the time Louis sauntered in.
‘Have you, darling boy,’ Kitty is demanding, ‘in your many
remunerative
years as a ‘bloody agent’, ever heard of such a thing as writers’ block?
Have you?
’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, Kit,’ he murmurs.
‘You were supposed to
help me
. Not just abandon me to drown in my bloody creative juices. So help me!
Help me!
Give me a fucking
idea
!’ She’s drunk, of course. Poor old thing. Seeing him looking so dapper and so bloody prosperous at her front door – it had shaken her up a bit, brought back a lot of unwelcome reminders.
The agent fiddles with his lighted cigarette and prays to a God he doesn’t believe in, for the bill to arrive. ‘And how is Scarlett?’ he lobs in half-heartedly. ‘Is she thriving?’
‘Scarlett’s fine,’ Kitty snaps. ‘Her teacher doesn’t seem to know if she can read or write. Which is a bloody joke. But otherwise she’s fine. Angel, would you mind moving that cigarette? The smoke’s going right up my nose.’
‘Doesn’t know?’ He laughs. ‘That’s a bit feeble, isn’t it? She always struck me as a very clever child.’ He envisages her as he saw her last, a few years ago now; with the little lopsided face, the little twisted back, and the big blue
watchful eyes…kind of enthralling, in a funny way; that combination of knowingness and vulnerability, in someone so young. Very striking. Very Zeitgeisty, put like that…a tiny, twisted package of human life representing the
malaise
of a generation, and so on. Someone ought to paint her.
Suddenly he leans forward. ‘I say, Kitty,’ he begins. ‘D’you have a photograph of her?’
‘What? Don’t be idiotic, David. We live together. Of course I don’t.’
‘But I take it she’s…’
‘What?’
‘I take it she’s…’ He hunches his shoulders in embarrassment, at a loss as to how to put it.
‘What?’ Kitty asks coldly. A rush of savage protectiveness washes over her. It takes her by surprise. She can feel herself blushing. ‘Spit it out, David.’