It was near closing time, and the crowds were moving towards the exit. The cafeteria was empty save for a scattering of elderly people who looked as if they were waiting to be retrieved by younger, more active relatives. We approached the counter. “What would you like?” Stephen asked.
Jenny pointed to a cake, and he lifted it off the shelf and put it on our tray. Then she demanded a chocolate biscuit, and an ice cream.
“A cup of tea, please,” I said to the girl behind the counter. “Won't you be having supper soon, Jenny?”
“I'm starving.”
“Couldn't you get the thing you're going to eat first and then come back if you're still hungry?” I suggested. “The ice cream will melt unless you eat it right away.”
“I want to eat them at the same time. Daddy always lets me have whatever I want for tea before I go home.” She emphasised the word “Daddy” in a way that made it clear that I was intruding.
“It does look like a lot,” said Stephen, “but if you promise to eat everything, I suppose we'd better get it now. I think they're about to close,” he added, apologetically, to me.
“I promise.”
We chose a table by the window. Jenny sat beside Stephen, and I sat opposite. Someone had left a box of matches on the table, and she picked it up and rasped a match along the side. A faint, sulphurous odour mingled with the smell of tea as the match burst into flame. Jenny blew it out, then struck another. She held the match vertical and watched intently until the small flame consumed the wood down to her fingertips. “Ooh,” she said with a little gasp, dropping the charred stick.
She was reaching for a third, when Stephen said, “Don't, Jenny. Matches aren't a toy.”
Slowly she closed the lid. She turned her attention to the cake and took a bite out of the middle.
“Do you think animals can talk?” Stephen asked, looking first at Jenny, then at me.
“How do you mean, talk?” she said.
“Talk like humans. You know, like in
Wind in the Willows
or Beatrix Potter. When I was six or seven, I was always trying to trick our pets into speaking to me.”
“That's silly.” There was a pause while she nibbled the chocolate off one end of the biscuit. Then she said, “What happened?”
“They never answered, but for years I was convinced that they could. They just didn't want to because I was a human.”
A small puddle was forming around the ice cream where it lay on the tray. I was determined not to say anything. I sipped my tea while Stephen reminisced about the dog he had had when he was Jenny's age. Eventually he noticed the ice cream. “I thought you promised to eat everything,” he said.
“But you're always saying chocolate's bad for me.” She grinned with pleasure at her cleverness.
He looked at me and gave a small shrug. An elderly woman, wearing a head scarf, passed our table. She smiled down at us approvingly, and I knew that she was imagining that I was Jenny's mother and that we were a nice young
family having tea. “Which was your favourite animal?” I asked Jenny.
“The wildcat,” she said, without hesitation.
“Mine were the otters,” said Stephen. “They actually seemed fairly content.”
“Why did you like the cat?”
She gave me a pinched look, as if she did not wish the slightest sliver of expression to slip out. “Because he was alone.”
She seemed to have decided that the cat, like the otters, was male. I followed her lead. “Did that make you feel sorry for him?” I asked.
I expected her to say yes and in my presumption already found that endearing, but she shook her head. “Then why?” I persisted.
“I think he's lucky.” She took a bite of cake so large that her cheeks bulged.
“Lucky?” I said, mystified, but before I could question her further, the cashier called loudly, “Ladies and gentlemen, the cafeteria closes in five minutes. Five minutes.”
Jenny took a few more hurried mouthfuls, and we got up to leave. I saw her look at the debris on the table with a small smile and thought that I was witnessing neither greed nor bad manners, but rather her need to be reassured about Stephen. This mess of sweetness was a tangible sign of his often absent love.
On the way out, Jenny and I stopped at the ladies'. There was a small queue, and we lined up with the other women and children. For a couple of minutes neither of us spoke. I did not realise that I was twirling my bracelet round and round until Jenny remarked that she liked it. The bracelet was the first gift I had ever received from Stephen, and as I described how he had given it to me, a surprise at supper one night, I felt myself smiling.
“Can I see?” Jenny asked.
I passed the bracelet to her, and she slid it on. It was, of course, too large, and when she pushed up the sleeve of her pullover the silver circle dangled from her small white wrist. She stood in front of the mirror, her arm outstretched, her head slightly to one side, as if she could detect more from the mirrored image than from the object itself. We were at the head of the line. A toilet flushed, and the door of one of the cubicles opened. Jenny disappeared inside.
I availed myself of the next free toilet. When I came out Jenny was washing her hands. I bent down at the basin beside her. “Could I have my bracelet back?” I said.
For a moment I thought that she had not heard me. She finished washing her hands and went to dry them. “Jenny,” I said. I held out my hand.
Very slowly she slid the bracelet down over her hand and dropped it into my outstretched palm. Then she hurried from the room.
Â
As we drove out of the zoo car park one or two of the street lights were already glowing. Stephen began to talk about the pros and cons of having the house rewired.
“We could just have the kitchen and dining room done,” I suggested.
“No, if we're having it done at all, we ought to do the whole thing,” said Stephen. We turned down Ferry Road. He had insisted on dropping me off before he took Jenny home. Although he seldom saw Helen on his weekly trips to their house, even the possibility of the two of us meeting made him anxious.
Jenny was sitting in the back. Throughout the journey she was so silent that I almost forgot her presence. When we pulled up outside our house I turned to speak to her. “Bye-bye. Thank you for taking me to the zoo.”
“Thank you for coming,” she replied, with a speed that robbed the words of their meaning. I said that I would see her
next week, and she nodded; her features conveyed neither gladness nor dismay.
She came and took my place in front beside Stephen. I shut the door for her and stepped back, ready to wave. Suddenly I remembered that I had left my new shirt lying on the seat. “Jenny,” I called, knocking on the glass.
She stared at me. Her eyes, always dark, appeared totally black. Involuntarily I found myself retreating before the force of her gaze; I shuffled back a couple of steps. During the months I had known Jenny, I had assumed, in spite of some difficult moments, that she was well disposed towards me; the malevolent intensity of the look she now bestowed upon me conveyed the exact opposite. It was almost, I thought, as if she hated me. I raised my hand but before I could knock again she had turned away. I saw her lips move as she said something to her father. Then the car slid forward. It gathered speed, the brake lights flared, and it disappeared into the main road. I was left standing, empty-handed, in the middle of the street.
Only a few months before I moved to Edinburgh, the idea that I would leave London ever, let alone in the near future, would have struck me as incredible. To me the capital of Scotland was a distant northern city where occasionally friends went on holiday, and returned muttering about the weather. Even when I found myself living there, I saw the city merely as a staging post where I had been forced to halt on the way to my real destination. My destination I thought of then as being Lewis.
Lewis and I had been at university together but had subsequently lost touch. When I ran into him in a London bookshop, I had not seen him for more than eight years. I had just come into the shop and was wondering which way to turn, when I realised that the man standing at the display table was Lewis. He wore an overcoat of dark, heavy material and was bending over a large volume. His red-gold hair, which I remembered hanging luxuriously down his back, now barely grazed his collar, and from this angle it was apparent that it had receded, leaving his forehead high and smooth. While I was debating whether to speak to himâthe chances of his remembering me seemed slenderâhe looked up. “Hello,” he said. “I know you. You were at York.”
As I introduced myself, I recalled that his surname was Jenkins.
“I don't suppose you know anything about gardening?” he asked. “I'm trying to buy my mother a birthday present, but
whenever I find a book that seems appropriate I worry she may already have it.” He held up the book he had been examining; on the cover a bush of scarlet roses illustrated the title
How to Grow a Prize-Winning Rose.
“I'm looking for a present too. For Greg and Lynne's daughter.”
“You mean Greg Turner and Lynne Harrison? That's amazing. Last time I saw them they were planning to go round the world.”
“Eve is two on Monday.”
“Two. My God.” He seemed genuinely flabbergasted, as if giving birth were among the most unusual of human activities. “Did you know I'd been abroad for the last four years, in Hong King?” I shook my head. “I only came home for good at Christmas, so I'm still in the process of getting in touch with people. I keep being taken aback at how much their lives have changed. For some reason I thought no one would make any major decisions in my absence.” He smiled in acknowledgement of his foolishness.
“What were you doing in Hong Kong?” I asked.
“Working for a bank. I've become one of those capitalists we used to love to hate.”
“Excuse me,” said a large woman in a fur coat. Lewis stepped closer to me to allow her to pass. For a moment I found myself looking into his eyes; they were blue, with unusually dark outer rims. I turned away in confusion. “I should go to the children's section,” I said awkwardly.
“I'll come with you. It'll give me a chance to decide whether to buy this book or not.”
While Lewis browsed, I scanned the shelves, searching for a book which Eve did not already own and which would also meet Lynne's high standards of political correctness. Finally I settled on a story about a cat who lived amicably in a church with many mice. As I was waiting to pay, Lewis came over.
“This was one of my big childhood influences,” he said, holding up a book. “Do you know it?”
The title was
Horace Goes Hunting
. I shook my head.
“You missed a vital part of your education. Horace the bear is the beloved pet of a large family, whom he devours at the rate of one a day. It used to make me laugh uproariously. Maybe I should get it for Eve. When did you say her birthday was?”
“Monday, but the party's today. I'm on my way there now.” I passed my book and money to the cashier.
Lewis looked at his watch. “Why don't I come along?” he said. “I'd love to see Greg and Lynne again.” The cashier counted out my change, and before I could answer, Lewis had handed over
Horace
and the gardening book. “I think this is a good choice for my mother,” he remarked. “She may be growing roses but she's not winning any prizes.”
I was delighted at Lewis's decision. Although I had not known him well at York, now he seemed like an old friend; it was as if the cafeterias and corridors, libraries and lecture halls through which we had passed, often unaware of each other's presence, had created a bond between us. We left the shop and he led the way around the corner to a maroon car. There was a ticket lodged beneath the windscreen wiper; without a second glance, Lewis crumpled it up and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he beckoned me to the driver's side. “The passenger door hasn't opened since someone rammed into it at Hyde Park Corner.”
Lynne and Greg lived on the edge of Maida Vale and soon we were heading towards the Euston Road. As we idled along behind a bus, Lewis asked what I did, and I told him briefly about my job, editing textbooks.
“That's right, you took English at York. And what else do you do?”
“How do you mean?” I was watching his hands on the
steering wheel, the pale skin, slightly reddened with cold, the golden hairs, each one distinct.
“You can't edit textbooks twenty-four hours a day. If Lynne and Greg can have a daughter, you could have a complete menagerie: sons, daughters, lovers.”
“None of the above. I do have a cat who travels up and down in a basket from my kitchen window.” As soon as I had spoken, I wished that I had phrased my reply differently
â
there was no reason to make myself sound quite so much of a spinster
â
but before I could emend my statement Lewis braked sharply. “Damn,” he exclaimed.
An old man in a raincoat had stepped out from behind a parked car. Paying no attention to our abrupt halt or that of several other vehicles, he continued slowly towards the middle of the road.
“Have you noticed how often that happens?” Lewis demanded. “The elderly cross the street with reckless abandon, while the young and able-bodied wait cautiously at the zebra crossing.”
I made some sound of agreement. I wanted to ask about his situation but he seemed intent on his speculations.
“Perhaps it's an example of natural selection,” he continued. “Old people aren't going to think: now it's time I committed suicide for the good of the tribe. But nature takes care of the problem by rendering them oblivious to danger. The species can't afford to have too many unproductive members.”
We were driving around the edge of Regent's Park. I watched a scruffy-looking boy trotting along the tow-path with three Dalmatians. It was perturbing to hear Lewis voice the sort of opinion that I had always attributed to bankers; at university he had been an ardent socialist. “You take the first right here,” I said.
In a few minutes we had reached Lynne and Greg's. We found a place to park down the street and walked back,
shielding our presents from the drizzle. As we approached I pointed out the house. The living room was on the first floor, and we paused to look up at the tall lighted windows. Various people were moving around the room, and I saw Lynne, her long hair hanging loose, talking to a man with a beard. Then we crossed the street and mounted the steps. I knocked at the door.
Lewis stood slightly behind me. “You can tell there's a proper family living here,” he remarked. “Look how clean the milk bottles are.”
The door was opened by Greg. “Celia,” he exclaimed. He leaned forward to kiss me and, as he did so, caught sight of Lewis. “Holy smoke. Lewis Jenkins.”
I stepped aside, and Greg reached to embrace Lewis. The two men followed me up the stairs, trying to remember where they had last seen each other. Greg thought it was in a pub near Paddington. Lewis reminded him of a concert at the Notting Hill Carnival. Conversation ceased as we reached the living room, where a dozen adults and almost as many small children were milling around. Some sort of game was in progress, but gratifyingly, as soon as she saw me, Eve broke out of the ring of children and ran towards me, shouting “Ceel, Ceel.”
Before Jenny, Eve was the only child with whom I had had an intimate association. She was bright, good-tempered, and wildly energetic. She was also marked with an angelic beauty, which made strangers in supermarkets exclaim. I picked her up, gave her a kiss, and wished her happy birthday. Behind us, in the hallway, Lewis was hugging Lynne. I was about to introduce him to Eve, but she started to wriggle and say, “Down, down.” The instant her feet touched the ground she rushed off to resume her game.
Lewis came into the room with Lynne and Greg. Introductions were performed. I recognised everyone, either from previous occasions or from remarks Lynne had made. If I had
not brought Lewis, I would, as so often in the past, have been the only single person present. The smiles and hellos were barely finished before he walked over to a group of small boys and squatted down to ask about the castle they were building. For the next couple of hours he devoted himself to Eve and her contemporaries. As a strategy for meeting women, it could not have been improved upon; he seemed to be constantly involved in conversation with one or another of the attractive young mothers. While I gave Lynne a hand with organising the tea, I watched him in what I hoped was an unobtrusive fashion. Never once did I catch him looking at me.
After tea I went out to the kitchen, and began to load the dishwasher. Suddenly the door opened wide. “So this is where you are,” said Lewis. He picked up some remnants of cake and popped them into his mouth. “I think we ought to be on our way.”
“But Lynne and Greg have asked us to dinner,” I said. In the course of the afternoon they had both remarked that they could scarcely wait for the other guests to leave, so that the four of us could talk in peace.
“It'll be ages before they're free. We can get together some other time. Unless you want to stay,” he added. It was clear that if this was the case, he was not offering his company.
“No. I'm quite ready to go.” I dried my hands and went to fetch our coats.
Outside, it was already dark. The indistinct dampness of earlier in the afternoon had turned to steady rain. “All those nice people,” Lewis burst out, as we crossed the road. “Don't you get tired of families
â
the problems of child care and potty training? What's happened to adults and the fate of the world?” He shook himself, like a dog emerging from water, impatient to shake off every trace of familial life.
“I thought you liked children.” Hadn't he, all afternoon, been offering himself as a play-mate to Eve and her guests?
“The children are fine; they're just themselves. It's the parents who are impossible.”
“Today was Eve's birthday party. Lynne and Greg aren't usually so preoccupied with her.”
“I'm not accusing them. They wouldn't be good parents if they weren't interested in their child.”
He opened the door and I scrambled in. When he was seated beside me I said, “I'm sorry. I thought you were having a good time.”
“There's no reason for you to apologise. As you pointed out, what could I expect, gate-crashing the birthday party of a two year old. Besides, I could always have left.” On the third attempt the engine caught.
Later I came to recognise this kind of behaviour as one of the several devices by which Lewis kept me enthralled. I would be under the impression that he was enjoying himself, and then it would emerge that he had been miserable. Or sometimes the reverse; he would seem to be sunk in gloom, yet, if I made some comment to this effect, deny it vehemently. These contradictions bewildered me; I never knew whether he was happy or not.
We came to a stop at a traffic light beside Paddington Station; Lewis concluded his remarks about a wine merchant's we had just passed. “What shall we do next?” he said. “I don't suppose you have a newspaper with you?”
My surprise must have been visible. He turned towards me, smiling. “You're free, aren't you? The cat won't mind if you stay out late?”
I shook my head. “I could run in and buy a paper at the station.”
“Given that I have to get out first, I might as well do the running. You can seduce any policemen that come along.”
He left the engine on, and while I waited I tinkered with the radio. The smallest movement of my hand carried me from Mozart to the shipping forecast. “An unusually high neap
tide off the coast of Ireland,” said a male voice. “And in the North Sea we have a force nine wind and a strong probability of thunderstorms.” I was so engrossed in the announcer's soothing tones that I did not notice Lewis until the door opened.
“Sorry,” he said. “I thought I'd take a look while I was in the light. That French detective film is on in Camden. We could make the six-thirty show.”
In the darkness, side by side, we watched the tale of deception and double-crossing unfold. The hero and heroine extricated themselves from one difficult situation after another, but I had little interest in their fate. More potent than any image on the celluloid screen, Lewis's arm lay alongside mine.
Afterwards, as he drove me home, Lewis talked animatedly about the film; he had clearly been engrossed. I gave directions and agreed with his comments. I lived not far from Camden, and we were almost at my flat when he said, “You know, the birthday cake must have worn off. I'm quite hungry.”