Authors: William Nicholson
Laura reappears with a stack of pink-and-white bowls, a jug of cream, and a triangular-shaped slicer.
“That's for you to cut it up with, Henry.”
Her hand resting on the back of his neck, stroking the short hairs there. Henry starts to slice. He cuts into the soft crust and the dark purple juice runs out.
In his absence, and on Diana's instructions, Roddy is given a large slice of the pudding. The cream jug makes the round of the table. Alan takes so much cream the pudding in his bowl disappears.
“Oh, Alan,” says Liz. “What a pig you are.”
Maggie too pours herself a liberal helping of cream.
Alan, noticing this, says with a smile, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” Then, to the rest of the company, in apology, “Blake, not me.”
“We don't have puddings like this in Purley,” says Maggie.
“I know Purley,” says Henry. “Purley is basically a traffic jam.”
“Don't say that, Henry,” says Laura. “Maggie probably grew up in Purley.”
“No,” says Maggie. “I've never been there in my life, and I don't see any reason why I ever should go there. If you go to Purley you leave too early.”
The others laugh at this without understanding it, because it has the sound of a joke.
“What's happened to Roddy?” says Laura.
“He went to the loo.”
“He's been very quiet during dinner,” says Henry. “I hope he's all right.”
“Why don't you go and see, Henry? Tell him his pudding's waiting.”
Henry gets up and goes into the house.
“My God, this is heaven,” says Alan, meaning the pudding. “I would get so fat if I was married to you, Laura.”
“Thanks,” says Liz.
“Oh, this is only for special occasions,” says Laura. “Usually I can't be bothered to do puddings.”
A trill of high birdsong sounds from a nearby tree, invisible in the darkness.
“Is that a nightingale?” says Alan.
No one knows.
“Aren't we useless?” says Alan. “We live in the countryside, but we know nothing about birdsong.”
“I don't live in the countryside,” says Diana.
Henry comes out.
“I can't find him,” he says. “He's not in the downstairs loo.”
“Maybe he's gone to lie down.”
“No, I've looked. He's nowhere in the house.”
“Nowhere in the house?” says Diana. “He must be.”
She goes into the house and can be heard calling him in shrill tones. “Roddy! Roddy!” Then she returns, arms spread in bewilderment.
“Where can he be?”
“He hasn't gone off to get something in the car?” says Liz.
“No. The car's there.”
“I suppose he's taken himself off for a walk,” says Laura. “He's been in an odd mood all evening.”
“A walk?” says Diana, her voice rising. “At night? Where would you walk to?”
“I don't know. To the river, maybe.”
“To the river?”
A moment of silence. Diana turns to Henry. All at once her face looks pale and lined.
“He's not having some sort of breakdown, is he?”
“No,” says Henry. “No, of course not. But I'll tell you what. I'll get a torch and go out to have a look for him.”
“I'll go with you,” says Alan.
Diana has started to tremble.
“He was drinking rather a lot,” she says. “He has been in an odd mood all evening.”
Henry and Alan cross the dry meadows in the moonlight. There's no need for the torch. To start with Henry calls out every few minutes. “Roddy! Roddy!” Then they make their way in silence. The lights of Lewes glow amber in the distance. A cool night wind on their faces.
“You don't think he'd do anything silly,” says Alan.
“No,” says Henry. “But something's not right with him. He was going on earlier about how this is the river where Virginia Woolf drowned herself.”
“Bloody hell.”
Ahead a strip of water glints in the moonlight.
“Actually,” says Henry, “it's not the same river here, it's a tributary called Glynde Reach.”
“Is it deep?”
“Deep enough.”
They tramp on over the close-grazed grass. The ground is hard beneath their feet. Too many weeks without rain.
“Roddy!” calls Henry. “Roddy!”
No answer.
“He's probably sleeping it off under a hedge,” says Alan.
“Hell of a lot of hedges,” says Henry.
He turns on the torch and rakes the land all round them, more to feel he's doing something than in the expectation of any result.
“Your speech at dinner,” says Alan. “It was wonderful.”
“Too much information, I expect.”
“No. These things need saying.”
Now they've reached the river. It runs bright and straight between deep banks. Henry flashes the beam of his torch over the water's surface, but there's nothing to be seen. They make their way along the river bank, following the water's flow. Ahead, the raised line of the railway embankment.
“How far do we go?” says Alan.
“This'll do,” says Henry, turning round. “If he's thrown himself in the river he'll be halfway to Newhaven by now.”
“But he wouldn't do that,” says Alan.
“No,” says Henry. “Of course not.”
He flashes his torch round the fields once more.
“Roddy!” he calls. “Roddy!”
They tramp back along the way they've come, no longer expecting to find him. And then, suddenly, there he is. He's crouched by the river's side, sitting on the grass of the bank, his
legs in the water up to his knees. He's hunkered down, both hands wrapped over his head, as if to protect himself from some imagined storm.
“Roddy! You bloody idiot!”
Henry's rough anger gives away his relief. Roddy looks up, his eyes confused, not recognizing them.
“Get your feet out of the water, you chump!”
He does as he's told. As he straightens up they see he's clutching something that has been resting in his lap. He totters slightly as he rises to his feet, and it falls to the grass. Henry gives him his hand for support. Alan picks up the fallen object, and holds it out in the moonlight. It's a box of Fudge's Florentines.
“Come on, now. Pull on me.”
Henry gets Roddy up the bank and onto the level ground.
“Are you all right, old chap?”
Roddy nods.
“I'll tell you what. You've ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes.”
Roddy doesn't look up or speak, but he allows them to lead him back toward the village.
“So what's our story?” says Henry. “You were pissed and decided to go for a paddle in the river?”
Roddy says something, but too low and indistinct for the others to catch.
“My fault,” says Henry. “Sloshing out too much wine. Typical host anxiety, I'm afraid.”
“Not drunk,” says Roddy.
“Best to say you are,” says Henry. “Better to be drunk than to be off your head.”
“Stick my head in cold water,” says Roddy.
“You do that.”
Roddy comes to a stop and looks round in panic.
“My Florentines!”
“Here they are,” says Alan, giving him the box.
Roddy takes the box and hugs it to his chest. They tramp on over the night field in silence. As they approach the lights of the village Roddy says with a tremor in his voice, “Don't let them make a fuss, will you?”
“No fuss,” says Henry. “We need to get you straight to bed.”
But the other members of the party are looking out for them, and seeing them approach they come to meet them. Diana has put on Wellington boots that are too big for her, but careless of her dignity she comes running, floundering.
“Roddy!” she cries. “Roddy! Thank God!”
She wraps him in her arms and clings to him, now openly sobbing.
“Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!”
Laura and Maggie have come too.
“He's fine,” says Henry. “Drunk too much. Needed to cool off.”
Henry and Laura move away from Roddy and Diana, not wanting to intrude on the unexpected spectacle of Diana's disintegration. Alan and Maggie move off in another direction, for the same reason.
Henry and Laura are the first to return to the house, where they're quick to reassure Liz and Andrew. Then a few moments later Diana appears, clasping Roddy tightly by one arm, and without a word to anyone leads him up the stairs to their bedroom.
Alan and Maggie, following behind, pass from the strong moonlight of the open field into the black night of the copse of trees bordering the lane. Maggie reaches out her arm and draws Alan close. She presses her body against his, feels in the blackness for his face, finds his lips with her lips. She kisses him fiercely,
straining her whole body to reach him, wanting to touch all of him. He returns her kiss, but only for a moment. Then his hands are gently detaching her, and he's drawing away from her.
They come out of the trees and cross the narrow lane into the gravel drive of the Broads' house. Neither of them speaks a word. Maggie enters the kitchen first, and there's Andrew waiting for her. Laura is making coffee for them all.
“Roddy's gone up,” she says. “Diana's with him.”
“We should go soon,” says Liz to Alan. “It's not fair on Bridget to stay out too late.”
They drink their coffee and talk in subdued voices, because although no one has questioned the cover story, they all saw how Roddy's legs were half-soaked.
Then Liz and Alan leave.
“So what was going on there?” says Liz as she drives out onto the main road.
“God alone knows,” says Alan.
“She was all over you. I couldn't believe it.”
“She was drunk.”
“Were you drunk too?”
“Oh, come on, Liz. What was I supposed to do?”
“You could have stopped smirking at her, for a start.”
“Was I smirking?”
“Yes, you were smirking.”
“Oh, God. I don't know,” says Alan. “I suppose I'm not very used to that sort of situation. I mean, you've got to admit it was all coming from her. Christ alone knows why.”
“She fancied you. Is that so surprising?”
They drive in silence for a few minutes.
Then Alan says, “Maybe she'll give us our planning permission now.”
Liz smiles at that.
“You might have to fuck her for it.”
“That's going a bit far, isn't it?”
“I'll have to think about that,” says Liz. “It's a tough one.”
Now Alan too is smiling in the dark of the car.
“What happened with Roddy?” says Liz.
“We found him with his feet in the river. I think he had some half-assed plan to drown himself.”
“Poor bugger. Wouldn't you, with a wife like that?”
“I don't know. People are infinitely mysterious. She was all over him when he came back.”
Turning off the Offham Road into the lanes, the river valley lies before them in the moonlight, calm and still.
“Didn't you love Henry's speech?” says Alan.
“I was jealous,” says Liz.
“I'll make you a speech like that,” says Alan. “But it has to be in public. That's what makes it count.”
“What will you say?”
“All the things Henry said. How loving you is all I really care about. But I'll leave out the bit about humility, and put in a bit about how you're a wonderful fuck.”
“In public?”
“I may use euphemisms.”
“So you don't want to run away with the pixie?”
“No. I want to run away with you.”
“Well, you don't have to run far.”
“How about tonight?” he says. “Are you still on for our date?”
“I may fall asleep,” she says. “Henry never stopped filling my glass.”
“Is it okay if I fuck you while you're asleep?”
“Yes, it's okay.”
His hand strokes her thigh, feeling her bare leg under her skirt.
“I may wake up,” she says.
Walking back through the night village, Maggie expects Andrew to speak, but he says nothing. After a little while she says, “I suppose I should say sorry.”
“Quite an evening,” he says.
“I kept on saying Purley. You were supposed to make an excuse so we could leave.”
“I didn't want to,” he says.
He doesn't sound angry, or hurt. Just far away.
“You weren't having a good time,” she says. “I could see you weren't.”
“No. I wasn't having a good time.”
“I drank far too much.”
Then, because he doesn't say anything, she says, “I kissed him. Out in the lane, when they came back from finding Roddy.”
He doesn't say anything to that either. If he's surprised, he's not showing it.
“Actually I don't know why I did it,” she says.
“I expect you wanted to find out,” he says.
“Find out what?”
“If there's someone out there who's better.”
How can he be so reasonable? It makes her jumpy.
“Don't you mind?”
“Yes,” he says. “But I couldn't stop you.” Then after a pause, “I didn't want to. I wanted you to go as far as you could.”
“Why?”
“So you'd find out.”
“I didn't find anything out,” she says. “He acted like I hadn't
done it. I expect he thought I was too pissed to know what I was doing.”
They walk on in silence. Through the half-open windows of a house they see the flicker of a television, hear the muffled excitement of a match commentator and the muffled roar of a crowd. In the lane ahead a fox lopes out into the moonlight, turns to stare at them, lopes into darkness.
All at once Maggie feels desolate. Here in the cool summer night, walking beside Andrew but not touching, she feels as if she's lost in space. She wants him to reach out and take her hand. She remembers how Henry said to Laura, “With all my love, till the day I die.”