New World in the Morning (28 page)

I'd had it all planned out. I'd meant to impress her with my honesty. (Like Zach?
He thought I'd be impressed by his honesty, by his resolution to confess
.) Had I remembered just in time?

Or was it something else that stopped me? A reluctance to admit to yet one more breach of trust; a reluctance to shed yet one more of those qualities which originally she'd found attractive?—it seemed that, as it was, there was so little of me left, so piteously little. Where had he gone to—that fellow, Samson Groves? (Ha!
Samson
Groves! So had he had a crew cut at the same time as his manicure? Was he now a skinhead? )

I looked up from the tablecloth. Nervously. “I don't know.”

“You don't know? You don't know what?”

I almost said,
Anything
. “I don't know whether or not I believe.”

“But why did you encourage me to think you did—and that you were so very
sure
? You already knew that I didn't believe.”

I said: “Like everything else, it grew.” (Or happened, rather; had there been the time for growth?) “I suppose I felt that you had certain hopes; and I couldn't bear to disappoint them. I suppose I thought if that was what you were looking for—certainties, encouragement for a belief—then that was what I'd try to give. Somehow. Perhaps in this way if no other I was even being a little selfless…” I shook my head, however. “No. Not selfless in any way at all. It was purely a means to an end. I wanted you so much.”

“Wanted?” she said.

But it transpired that—unexpectedly coy—it was merely my tense which she was querying and suddenly I realized that it
was
going to work out. Oh, it was, it was! The inquisition was over. Against all the odds: I had come through.

“Wanted. Want. Shall want. For ever and ever and always, amen! All the gerunds and gerundives and participles thrown in. Oh, darling, I shall change, I shall change! I'm not basically a liar, never have been, but I'm still a lot of things I know I shouldn't be. Vain, selfish, sexist, stupid, greedy”—I saw Matt using his tablemat as a reporter's notepad—“arrogant at times, intolerant—lacking in compassion and imagination—mean, calculating, unstable…”

She put her hand up, swiftly, with a laugh.

“Whoa! Stop! This is
not
the way to sell yourself.”

I wondered for a moment if indeed I had overstepped the mark. “But I do have a couple of fairly nice points, as well. And all I need, deep down, is the love of a good woman.”

She dispelled these latest doubts…not by kissing me nor by the use of any reassuring phrase or endearment but simply by going to a cupboard and getting out the large iced cake with its haze of cottage garden colours. “I think that, for afters, we ought to have a slice of Granny's cake.”

“Junie's cake.” But then—again not sure whether I had said the right thing—I told her that Susie had been put down.

“Why?”

“Because Junie…” Then I paused and made a fresh start. “Because I suppose I should never have tried hanging on to her after the accident.”

Loyalty had been another of my father's gods.

“Oh, Sammy, I am sorry. That must have been so… How did the children take it?”

I realized I hadn't thought very much about how the children had taken it.

“They were both pretty upset. Naturally.”

Then I said: “But in a way Susie was more my dog than theirs.”

“I can believe it.”

I wondered for how long she would have to go through life assuring me she could believe it. I wondered for how long I would have to go through life asking myself whether or not she could believe it.

“How do they feel about your leaving home?”

“Badly.” For the moment, though, I didn't want to think about that. Just those two syllables had been quite hard.

“But, tell me, isn't there any least chance of a reconciliation? I mean, if it weren't for me, if I hadn't happened to walk into your shop looking for a present last weekend…?”

“No. None,” I said. “None whatsoever.”

“Not even for the sake of Matthew and Ella?”

“No.”

“Tell me about Junie. Just a little.” She smiled. “She's obviously a good cook.”

This, I knew, was going to be difficult. I realized that someday I would need to loosen up but, for the time being, talk about Junie seemed better avoided. “Oh…we met and married and were much too young. We had no yardsticks and…and we didn't appreciate that people changed; or that one of us could change and not the other. There ought to be a law: no one can marry under twenty-five.”

And I hoped that, for the present, this disposed of Junie. Yet when I thought of her being made to look foolish in front of a former schoolfriend—and, worse, in front of a former schoolfriend's wife—I had immediately to add: “But, yes, that's right. She is a good cook. And a good mother. A
very
good mother. And there've obviously been times when we've had a lot of fun. I'm not saying that she didn't try to make things work. I'm not saying that at all.”

But, whilst owning up to this, I had to make myself think back ten hours. The steely set of her face. That mask of sullen enmity. I must really hold onto those. Anyway, I must hold onto them for tonight and tomorrow and probably the next few weeks.
So has she discovered yet you're not that good in bed?

She had been hurt, of course. She had been very badly hurt.

Can't she bring herself to tell you how magnificent and strong you are, not even when you feed her all the proper lines?

I wished that at that moment we hadn't been sitting there eating her cake.

“The very last lie,” I said, “or at least the very last omission. I've had a vasectomy. One gets no guarantee that these can be reversed.”

She simply pulled a face. I wasn't sure if this chiefly expressed sympathy for me—or concern for herself—and I didn't like to ask.

It was after half-past-eight when we cleared away the supper things.

“Momentous question,” I said. “Grave repercussions for the future. Do you mainly prefer to wash or dry?”

“No, I'll see to that. To tell you the truth I'm getting a little worried. That you mayn't be able to find a room, even in a hotel. I mean, of course, the smaller, cheaper sort of hotel.”

My face wouldn't have done too well for the diplomatic corps.

“Sammy, I really need to have a chance to think! I'm not going to let you spend the night here.”

Which wasn't (I supposed) wholly unreasonable.

“And anyway,” she said, “Zach's coming back at nine.”

“Will
he
be spending the night here?”

Oh, how to win friends and influence history…without even thinking about it!

“No, he will not! Certainly he won't! All we do is talk. He phones me when he's feeling down…and when I sent him away I couldn't say I wouldn't see him
at all
tonight. Especially since at the time of his phone call this afternoon…”

“What?”

“Well, it was
me
who needed cheering up. He did everything he could to help.”

Oh, yes, and I could easily imagine how! No doubt by telling her she would very soon get over me and that I really wasn't worth feeling all depressed about. How much
detail
would she have given him?

“Then he obviously hasn't remarried?”

“No.”

“But do you still fancy him?”

“Sam, I would advise you to leave it right there.”

“After all, you said he looked a lot like me.”

I wasn't being aggressive. I was being rational. Pulling at the skin through my open collar with a thoughtful, almost academic air. It would be interesting to hear the answer.

She wouldn't give me any answer.

“Then I've a good mind to stay and…”

“And
what
?”

“Tell Mr Zach-Whatever-His-Bloody-Name-Is exactly where he gets off!” I agree that didn't sound, perhaps, so entirely academic. Or rational.

“Oh God,” she said.

“Because when he says he's feeling down how can you be sure that's really what he is feeling? How can you be sure he isn't feeling randy?”

“Oh, how can I be sure of anything?”

Mercifully, her exasperation was the very corrective I needed. I gave myself some hard knocks on the temple with the heel of one palm.

“I'm not normally like this. I swear I'm not. It's been a really tough couple of days.”

She smiled, albeit thinly.

“Forgive me?”

She nodded.

“No. I want to hear you say it.”

“Sammy, I forgive you.”

I still looked deep into her eyes, searching for that absolution, that state of grace which I would so much need if I were going to have any real sleep that night, whether in bedsit or small hotel. Despite her gentle words—her tired but gentle words—I wasn't totally convinced that absolution had been conferred. Not unequivocally conferred.

What was conferred, beyond question, was painstaking advice on how to get to Kilburn.

“May I leave one of my suitcases?”

She had to consider this.

“Yes, you may. But when do you suppose you'll be wanting it?”

“Why? Does it matter?”

“Not really. It's just that…”

“What?”

“I'd rather we didn't see each other for a while. Let's say—a week.”

“A week!”

“You see, I want to be as certain as I can be of the way I feel.”

“Then…not until next Monday?”

“Don't sound like that! It really isn't so long! And you'll have plenty to be getting on with.”

“Oh, yes? Like what?”

“Like finding your bearings. Making arrangements. Looking for work.” She paused. “Like getting things sorted inside your own head.”

“Thank you but I don't think I have to get things sorted out inside my own head.
I
know what's good for me.
I
know what I want. Unlike
some
,” I added—but only in a mutter, as I went downstairs to fetch the suitcase which I wasn't going to take.

“Obviously, you've got all your wash things in the one you'll be keeping? Socks? Shirts? Underwear?”

“It sounds like the end of the school holidays. When I was about five.”

“Well, don't forget to wash behind your ears!” She smiled. “Soap? Towel?”

I hadn't thought of bringing either. She supplied me with both.

“Pocket money?”

“Piss off.”

She laughed.

“But I
will
take the cake,” I decided. Guard against night starvation; give me succour through the long dark hours. Make bloody sure that bloody Zach—Zachary?—Zachariah?—what sort of poncy name was that: him in his yellow jacket and green corduroys!—that bloody Zach wasn't going to be comfortably tucking into it five minutes after I had finished, less comfortably, doing the same. Junie hadn't made that cake for any cheap philandering fantasist.

“Sensible,” she said.

I wondered also about asking for the meat pie and the soup; partly for purposes of economy.

But for some reason I couldn't bring myself to do it. Neither cars in driveways nor meat pies in refrigerators. (Possibly.)

Moira left the cake in her own tin; added a couple of plates, a mug and some cutlery. A tea towel, Jiffy Cloth, screws of coffee, Coffee-Mate and sugar. A few tea bags. She tied the tin with the same hairy string which Junie had put around the box but neither the knot nor the loop was nearly as secure as the original. Inevitably this raised a point: how well was she going to make out, then, stationed at the entrance to a maze?

“You should've used that golden thread,” I told her. “So long as you meant to keep a firm hold on it while it unravelled. I'm journeying this night into the darkest reaches of the heart of Kilburn.”

“But you led me to infer,” she commented, drily, “that you had in mind something a little more interesting around which to tie that.”

I smiled. We were back in the Abbey Road. We were once more on track for happiness. Safely on track.

“I do believe you're teasing me, Pandora.”

“Pandora again? I thought my name was Ariadne.”

“Tonight I'm all at sea. Ariadne is the land girl, Pandora's the self-sacrificing angel who swims out to the ship. Two sides of the same coin. You're both beautiful. Both bringers of release and of salvation.”

“Oh, good,” she observed. “Almost the perfect setup you've got there. Almost—dare one say it?—a Captain's paradise.”

But before I'd had much opportunity to react, either clumsily or with grace (and I'd always wanted life to imitate the movies), she went on, “Now, go and bring up your other case, so we can pack the mug and plates, etc. I don't want you and Zach first meeting on the stairs.”

“Why not?” I wondered if she'd told him I was there. “Afraid he'll think he's seen his doppelganger and imagine only death can follow as a consequence?”

“Idiot!” As she said it she reached up and briefly kissed my lips. But twisted away the moment I tried to hold her with my free hand. “Sammy?”

I'd already started down the stairs.

“Just in case,” she said, “you find yourself starting to slip into the doldrums and feel you must either talk to somebody or bust… Well, I'm usually here from around six and our embargo needn't stretch to the telephone.”

“Right, then.”

“And Sammy?”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing!”

“Go on. Say it.”

“No, it isn't unpleasant. Could maybe sound a tad sentimental, that's all.”

“Well, you know me! A sucker for sentiment.”

“I was only going to mention that…however this turns out… whatever we decide…”

“Yes?”