Over lunch Stephen told Jenny about the money. “You didn't see it by any chance?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I'm sure I can find it,” she said to me. “Mummy always asks me to help when she loses things. She says I'm lucky. In Nairn I saw a five pound note on the bumper of a car. And last term I found a ring in the school cloakroom. Where did you lose it?”
“I'm afraid I've no idea. It seemed to vanish between the bank and the supermarket.”
“That makes it harder,” she said judiciously, “but I expect it's in your bedroom somewhere. If I find it, can I have a reward?”
“Of course,” I said. “That's only fair.”
“How much?”
I had been thinking of a trip to the cinema, or a book, and this blunt demand for remuneration startled me. “I don't know. What do you think?” I said, turning towards Stephen.
“Ten percent?”
“That sounds right.” I looked back at Jenny to see what she thought.
“So, do you know how much Celia's going to give you for finding her money?” Stephen asked.
“A pound,” she said flatly, not at all as if she were glad to be able to answer his question.
When we had finished eating, Jenny quizzed me again
about my movements. Together we searched the house, but all we found were the kinds of things that are always under pieces of furniture: dust, paper clips, hairpins, tissues. Jenny was even more persistent than I. “Could we lift the bed?” she asked. “Did you look under the chest of drawers?” She only agreed to stop when Stephen announced that it was time to leave; we had tickets for a matinee of
Winnie-the-Pooh
.
As I sat watching Pooh and Eeyore frolic around the stage, my attention wandered. Stephen's suggestion that someone could have stolen the money pricked me, like a burr caught in my clothes. At the office, in spite of occasional memos about security, I had followed Suzie's example. I kept my office door open, and I often went out leaving my handbag unguarded. It was hard to imagine that someone I saw every day would steal from me, but of course there were always strangers wandering around.
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That evening after Jenny had gone to bed Stephen and I settled to work at opposite ends of the dining room table. He was preparing a test. I was editing Brockbank's
Introduction
to
Scottish Poetry
, which, in spite of my reluctance, we were reprinting. The room had been silent for some time, except for the roar of the gas fire and our intermittent sighs, when Stephen burst out, “Damn, how can I teach algebra when I can't solve this problem myself? So far I've got three different answers.”
“With difficulty,” I said, and giggled.
“How's old Brockbank doing?”
“Some parts are fine. His biographical notes, for instance, could be published as is, but his critical introduction is nothing more than a paean to his favourite poets.”
“I've never heard anyone actually use the word âpaean' before. Would you like some more?” He picked up the bottle of red wine that stood in the middle of the table.
“Yes, please.” I pushed my glass towards him. “There was
something I wanted to ask you,” I said. “Do you think you could you tell Jenny not to go into our room? A couple of times I've found her peering into the wardrobe, or examining the things I keep on top of the chest of drawers. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“You should ask her to leave,” Stephen said energetically.
“I feel awkward telling her what to do.”
“That's absurd, Celia. It's your room, and even if it weren't, you're perfectly entitled to tell Jenny what to do.”
I ran my finger up and down the edge of the manuscript. “You don't think it will seem like I'm trying to take Helen's place.”
“Of course not. You're the adult, she's the child. You shouldn't have any compunction in bossing her around.” He stood up and came round the table to hug me. “I love you,” he said.
We were having breakfast on Tuesday when Stephen broke the news to Jenny that he would be working late. The previous term Deirdre and he had decided to set up a tutoring program at their school. Every Tuesday, he explained, senior pupils would volunteer their time to help those in the lower forms who were having difficulties. He and Deirdre would preside over the whole occasion and act as consultants. Tonight was the first session of the program.
“How will I get home?” Jenny asked.
“Celia's going to leave work early and pick you up from school.”
“When will you be home?” She had been pouring cereal into her bowl. Now she put down the box carefully, as if it were important to position it in exactly the right place.
“Not until you're fast asleep. I'll see you tomorrow morning.”
He spoke in a jolly tone which took for granted Jenny's good-humoured compliance in the arrangements. Watching her, I felt less confident of her reaction. The corners of her mouth were tucked in, and for a moment I was worried that, like a much younger child, she would refuse to stay alone with me. “It'll be fun,” I said. “We can make supper together.”
“Can I have the milk, please?” she asked. When Stephen passed her the jug, she poured an exact amount into her cereal, then deftly raised the jug so that no drip trickled down the side.
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Stephen had drawn a map showing the way to Jenny's school, but I must have taken a wrong turn. Just as I expected the school to come into view, I found myself on the edge of a housing development; half a dozen multistorey buildings rose out of a wasteland. A boy in a raincoat was standing at a zebra crossing, and I stopped to ask for directions. “Let me think,” he said several times. “Langton Road. I know it's right around here.” I was about to drive off in despair, when a middle-aged man wearing shorts came jogging along. “Excuse me,” I called loudly. He stopped and between gasps gave directions. The boy in the raincoat nodded accompaniment. “That's right enough,” he kept saying.
My hands were sweating, and I knew without glancing in the mirror that my cheeks were red. I drove as fast as I could, using the horn on several occasions to warn pedestrians and fellow motorists. Outside the school the pavement was empty, save for the small, solitary figure of Jenny. She was standing in front of the gates, and as I approached I saw her looking anxiously up and down the street. She caught sight of the car, and ran over and climbed in. I apologised for being late.
“That's okay,” she said. “I knew you didn't know the way.”
“Will you tell me how to get home?”
“First you turn round. Then go left at the main road.” In between directions she told me about her classes. In English they were learning “Ode to Autumn,” in history they were studying the Vikings. Miss Nisbet had asked her to read her composition to the class. “The one about Edward and Selina?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Ahead of us a man on a bicycle was pedalling furiously up the slight incline. He carried a briefcase in one hand and wove
erratically from side to side. I slowed down to give him a wide berth.
“Turn left at the church.” Jenny pointed. “In gym we got to play netball.”
“I was always terrible at netball. I much preferred hockey.”
“Hockey's easy if you're big,” she said. “Then you can bash everyone; but if you're small, netball's better. Even though I can't shoot goals, I can sneak around, getting in the way and passing the ball.”
When we reached home, we both went to our rooms to change. I had been worrying all day about how Jenny and I would manage, but her lively conversation was dispelling my anxiety. As I put on my jeans, I realised that I was looking forward to spending a few hours alone with her. How could I expect us to become friends if our intimacy depended entirely upon Stephen?
By the time I came into the kitchen Jenny was already there. She was standing on the stool she used to reach the cupboards, inspecting the contents of various tins. “What would you like for tea?” I asked.
“Tea and toast and honey.” She lifted the loaf out of the bread box.
While visiting her maternal grandparents during the summer, Jenny had acquired a taste for tea, and she now insisted upon drinking it at every opportunity. The kettle boiled. I filled the teapot and carried it into the dining room. When I came back to the kitchen, she was buttering the toast. “I've done two slices each,” she said.
We agreed that we would read at tea. I settled for the newspaper, and Jenny produced a
Bunty
annual. She read the comic every week. I remarked that I had not seen the book before. “I bought it today,” she said. She did not raise her eyes from the page. I knew that there was a newsagent's near
the school that she and her friends sometimes patronised in their lunch hour.
After tea we went out into the garden to feed Selina. She was crouched in one corner of her run, nibbling the grass. “Selina,” Jenny called. The rabbit raised her head and took a couple of hops in our direction.
“She knows her name,” I said.
“I think it's more that she knows my voice,” Jenny said. “Fred,” she called.
Selina, who had resumed her grazing, looked up again. Jenny reached in for her dish and walked off towards the shed, where the rabbit food was kept. Meanwhile I knelt down and poked some grass through the wire netting. Selina gazed at me; her eyes were the same shade of delicate blue as the forget-me-nots in the herbaceous border. She ate the grass I held out to her until Jenny returned and set down the dish brimming with pellets. Then she hopped over and began to eat the pellets daintily, one by one. Jenny squatted down to watch her, and I went back indoors.
The
Bunty
annual was lying open on the dining room table. I picked it up and found myself reading about the four Marys. Except for their hairstyles, they seemed exactly the same as when I had followed their adventures twenty years before. I read a couple of pages with amusement. As I put the book aside I noticed that the price was six pounds ninety-five pence. It was a considerable sum of money for someone who got only twenty-five pence a week in pocket money.
I settled down to work on the introduction of
Sunset Song
. The author had agreed to my editing with tremendous zeal, which I had initially welcomed. Now that I studied her comments more closely, I understood that she was in effect washing her hands of the manuscript and it was up to me to solve the many problems that remained. When Jenny came in I was pondering a particularly incoherent paragraph. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I'm working. Do you have homework?”
She nodded. “I have to do arithmetic, and I have to read a chapter about the Vikings.”
“That doesn't sound too bad.”
She left the room, and I assumed that she had gone to work at her desk, but she returned in a couple of minutes with her satchel and seated herself at the far end of the table. For a few minutes there was silence. Her head was bent over her books, and I could not see her face. She wrote something. I turned my attention back to the manuscript. Suddenly the table shook slightly. Jenny was rubbing something out.
“I don't understand this,” she said with a small sigh.
“What?”
She stood up and brought her notebook to show me. She was just beginning fractions, and her homework consisted of ten problems in addition and subtraction. “Can you do this one?” I asked, pointing to the first question:
1/2
+ ¼ = ?
Jenny shook her head.
“You can only add fractions that have the same denominator. The denominator is the bottom number. Suppose this was a half plus a half, then what would the answer be?”
“One,” said Jenny doubtfully.
“That's right. So what did you do to get one?”
By a series of questions I coaxed her into translating a half into two fourths. “Two fourths plus one fourth is what?” I asked.
“Three fourths?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me, as if waiting for something more. “That's the answer, Jenny. Write it down.”
As we worked down the list of problems, I realised that I was using the same technique with Jenny that my father had used with me. He had been an enthusiastic teacher. I remembered how he had come home one afternoon and found me attempting to draw a triangle in which the sum of the angles
did not equal one hundred and eighty degrees. The floor was littered with my attempts. I had drawn triangle after triangle, making the apex severely acute, gapingly obtuse, imagining each time that I would take the third angle by surprise, and occasionally, for a moment, it seemed that I had succeeded. Closer scrutiny of the protractor, however, always revealed that the amount by which the sum varied was too small to be above suspicion.
“What are you doing?” my father asked. He stood in the doorway of my room, undoing his tie.
Reluctantly I explained. I had wanted to surprise him.
“But that's impossible, Celia,” he burst out. He did not seem to understand that that was the point; there would be no glory attached to showing that a square had four equal sides. “What did Miss Grey tell you about the sum of the angles in a triangle?”
“That they always add up to a hundred and eighty degrees.”
“Didn't she show you why?”
I shook my head.
My father walked over to my desk, seized a pencil and a clean sheet of paper, and drew a very ordinary triangle. “Now let's call the angles a, b, and c.” He drew a line at the apex parallel to the base. “What size is this angle?” he asked, indicating the angle between the line and the left-hand side of the triangle.
“I don't know.”
“Yes, you do. This line is parallel with the base.”
Grudgingly I gave the right answer. In a few minutes he had led me through the steps of the proof. At every stage I knew what my father wanted me to say, and I said it, yet I remained unconvinced. Whatever he had proved, that did not mean that I had to believe it. Although I stopped trying to draw the magic triangle, it was only because I saw that he would be irritated by my persistence.
Jenny, however, seemed more amenable to the Socratic approach, and by the last few sums I was merely affirming her answers. I was pleased by her new skill and especially by the fact that we were managing without Stephen. When she had written out the answers neatly and finished the Vikings, I put aside my editing. Together we made macaroni cheese. At Jenny's suggestion we ate in front of the television.
After supper I returned to
Sunset Song
, but I soon realised that I was too tired to do anything useful. I put the manuscript back in my briefcase and went to the bedroom. The day before, Marilyn had posted an appeal at the office asking for donations of clothes for a jumble sale; it seemed a good opportunity to get rid of various garments. I opened the door of the wardrobe and began to slide the hangers along the rail. Tucked away at one end was the blue dress which I had last worn to Nick and Charlie's party. I lifted it out and, holding it up against me, turned to the mirror. As I gazed at my reflection, I remembered with amazement the grief I had suffered over Lewis. It was as if he had transported me to a foreign country, where nothing made sense. Now that I was home again, that emotion, which had once loomed large as a mountain, seemed no bigger than a mole hill. I was still pondering this amazing transformation, when Jenny came in.
She asked what I was doing. I explained, and she walked over to join me. Side by side we scrutinised the contents of the wardrobe. “Why aren't any of Daddy's things here?” she asked.
“He keeps them in the hall cupboard.”
“Oh,” she said. She pulled out a pair of brown trousers and held them up in front of her. “These are horrid. Like mud.”
“Jenny, I just bought those. I've never even had a chance to wear them. I thought they'd be useful in winter.”
“They can be useful to someone else.” She put them down on the foot of the bed. She pointed towards a striped blouse, with a bow at the neck. “Do you ever wear this?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted. “If I'm meeting authors.”
“It's not very nice.” She wrinkled her nose.
I took the blouse and placed it on top of the trousers. There was soon a sizeable pile. Jenny had strong opinions about my clothes, and few of them were favourable. Rather than argue, I decided to sort through the collection again after she had gone to bed. Meanwhile I announced that we were finished. Jenny moved towards the door, then stopped. “You're not getting rid of this, are you?” she asked.
She was pointing to the blue pullover which I had bought a few days before to console myself for returning to work. “No, of course not,” I said. “I forgot to put it away.”