Authors: Sarah Bilston
He nodded back behind us. I looked over my shoulder; the coast seemed miles away, a thin silver strip already far in the distance. It was, indeed, a long swim home. I shivered.
Paul was watching me. “It’s been about an hour, we should probably go back, I’ll take us home, okay?” he said gently, and he came over to me, nudging my damp body aside. Feeling suddenly very conscious of my arms and legs, not to mention my soaked top and shorts, I surrendered my position and slithered over to my old spot on the side of the boat and grabbed for the triangular hook. We sailed quietly home, watching the gray-green water thump-thump-thumping past us.
Q and Tom were sitting with Adjile and Lily on the beach. As Paul and I approached, we could hear them laughing. Samuel was half-lying, half-sitting on Q’s lap, in a mercifully good mood. I could hear him burbling as he lifted his head like a curious tortoise at the spinning gulls in the blue sky.
Paul steered us toward the dock, lowering the sails to slow down the boat. Adjile had strolled over and was waiting; as we drew level with him, he reached over and guided us in. “Enjoy yourself?” he asked, tying off the hitches, and I nodded.
“It was just—
amazing,
” I said happily, and he and Paul laughed. “Thanks,” I said to Paul, as he helped me out, “thanks for showing me what to do. I had such a lovely time.” And then I turned around,
biting my lip, embarrassed all over again—I sounded like an awkward English schoolgirl, for God’s sake…I was also painfully conscious of the imprint of his wet, gloved hand on my arm.
“Hey, Jeanie, wait up—” he called softly as I walked away from him, wringing the water out of my hair. I turned around. He was unfastening his sailing gloves and stripping off his life-vest. “You’re a good sailor,” he went on, grinning. “You’ve got good intuitions, you know?”
“Have
I?” I started to say, eagerly, then flubbed it, stumbled over the words, and blushed again and again in spite of myself.
All in all (as I explained to Alison, in a hastily dashed-off e-mail when we arrived home, the words flying out of my fingers), it’s a good thing he showed his
true
colors on the way home. Really, a very good thing indeed. Or who knows
where
things might have ended up!
Q
H
ey, dude, I’ll catch you later.” Paul shook hands with Adjile; his lips touched Lily’s smooth brown cheek. “Thanks, guys. That was a great day.”
“Always welcome,” Lily replied, laughing, and then she turned
toward me, her extraordinary eyes sparkling. “And it was so nice to meet you and your sister. I’m always
amazed
when I meet sisters who actually get along. My sister and I hated each other when we were children. To be quite honest, I don’t think much of her now, either! Such a catty little thing…”
We walked toward Paul’s car, her light arm linked through mine. “Have you two always been friends?” she asked curiously. I was acutely conscious of the smallness of her body as we walked, her narrow waist, her tiny feet, her lustrous hair gleaming in the late-afternoon sunshine. She seemed almost to fly over the rocks. I had to work not to stumble.
I looked over toward Jeanie, and grinned, a little embarrassed. “I think we united against a common enemy as children: Alison, our other sister,” I explained. Alison is hard to describe to new people; I thought carefully for a moment about how to characterize her. “She’s the middle one. Always too self-confident. Married a minor aristocrat, so now she gets to throw a bit of mud at a wall and call it ‘art.’ No one likes to challenge her, of course, so she’s become very—well, smug as an adult. Even more superior. She’s competitive as well, although she hides that part of herself from everyone but us.”
“Really? So there’s a third. How funny,” Lily remarked. She looked up. “Isn’t she terribly jealous right now?”
Funnily enough, this view of things had never occurred to me. “I don’t think so,” I said. “No, not really. Alison has far more important things to do than think about us. Great Sculpture to complete, for one thing. Of course, her stuff is
terrible,
isn’t it Jeanie? Just terrible!”
“Now you sound more like a sister!” Lily laughed, handing me into the car. “Sisters see through each other like—like tigers through smoked glass. I think I heard that somewhere. Okay, so I get it now. Alison’s the odd one out. Well, I hope to meet her one day. Finish the puzzle. Put all the pieces together.”
“Not likely,” I returned laughing, still trying to exchange glances
with Jeanie, who had her back to me and was fiddling awkwardly with something under her nails. There was a strange flush on her cheeks. “Alison came out to see me a few months ago, while I was pregnant, and she made it very clear she’d have better things to do for the next decade than visit again. Jeanie and I don’t get on with her terribly well, so we don’t really care.”
Tom passed Samuel in to me while Paul, now changed into a pale linen shirt and trousers, helped Jeanie into the front seat. “I can manage, thank you,” she said, sounding slightly pent up, as he slid his hand beneath her elbow; Paul shrugged.
“Of course. Whatever,” he returned, coldly brusque, pouring himself into the front seat.
It was a small moment, but such is the strange chemistry of conversation that it somehow seemed to poison what followed. There was nothing I could put my finger on, but once the final good-byes had been waved, and our hosts, arms around each other, had receded into the darkness of the starry evening, the good mood receded too. Jeanie, edgy and agitated, seemed primed for a fight, and every conversational topic seemed to find her and Paul on different sides. Paul admired a house set high upon a bank, Jeanie thought it far too big. Jeanie liked a song on the radio, Paul called it “sentimental.” Paul mentioned that he loved to drive, Jeanie hissed about environmental damage. Jeanie sympathized with the travails of a famous popstrel who had recently lost custody of her children, Paul declared her a lunatic. Jeanie said London had the best food in the world, Paul shook his head and asked if she’d ever been to Hong Kong. And so it went on, and on. Jeanie: thrillers; Paul: detective fiction. Jeanie: musicals; Paul: theater. Soon their arguments were beginning to get personal. “I can’t
think
why you—” “Oh shut up, Paul, that’s plainly
ridiculous
…”
By the time we pulled into the driveway, Jeanie was sunk into her seat with her arms tightly crossed around her breasts, radiating cold fury. Paul was sitting beside her with an air of insolent ease, one
hand on the wheel, the other arm lying negligently across the top of her seat, holding forth on the merits of basketball (Jeanie having indicated initially that she preferred tennis). We unpacked ourselves and the baby in silence. Jeanie stalked into the house without unfolding her body, without saying a friendly “good-bye” or “thank you” to Paul, without even talking to
me
.
“Nice end to the day,” Tom said, weary and rueful, as we stumbled into our room. “
That
was fun. Not the day, I mean; the trip home. What was
up
with her? She can be really immature sometimes. You can tell she’s twenty-four, can’t you?
Crazy
behavior.” He shrugged his wide shoulders. “One minute everything seems fine. The next, for no reason at all, she starts scratching at Paul.” He yawned, pulling off his T-shirt and throwing it onto a chair.
Of course I was moved to defend her (“You were twenty-four yourself not so long ago,” I reminded him tartly), but I took something of his point. “Do you think they’re going to keep this up all weekend?” I whispered, as we got into bed. “I hope not!”
Tom opened his mouth to reply, but his words were drowned out by—what else?—the sound of a very unhappy, very hungry, and very awake small baby.
I was starting to think there was some great ledger in the sky, and that every moment of pleasure was balanced out by a wail from our miserable son. Oh look, said some awful malignant deity, peering down at us. Tom and Q have managed three minutes of happiness, time to poke a stick in that child’s innards to make him scream.
“Are we nearly at twelve weeks yet?” my husband moaned in the cold white gray of five a.m.
Jeanie
O
ne distinct problem of sleeping in the sitting room was you couldn’t lie in. I longed for my pretty bedroom with its thick mattress and luxurious en suite—but, of course, I’d had to give it all up to Paul. I heard Q and Tom and the baby squalling in the kitchen the morning after our sailing trip at seven; my head was pounding. After trying to ignore them for twenty minutes, I gave up and reluctantly presented myself. Ten minutes later, Paul himself emerged, showered, pressed, and polished in smart linen trousers with a silky cotton shirt. Q and Tom suddenly discovered pressing reasons to take the baby outside, which left the two of us glowering at each other over the breakfast table. Looking at his elegant get-up, I wished I was armored in something more than just my pink gingham M&S pajamas. I was always underdressed around this man.
He lost no time in getting straight to the point. “You talk a lot of crap,” he said airily, “but I like the fact that you have opinions.”
This caused me, briefly, to lose my footing. “Well, yes,” I said vaguely. “Of course I do.
Lots
of them, actually.”
This didn’t seem to be my strongest point, so I stopped and paid a great deal of attention to my mug, watching the tea-bag globe swirl a trail of brown through the milk. Paul cut himself a slice of bread, which he covered in a thin, even film of blackcurrant jam. “So Jeanie,” he went on. “I know about your family. I know where you
like to take holidays. And I know all about your flatmate, the terrible Una. But what do you actually do for a living? How come you’re here for six months?” Watching me, he set his perfect teeth into the sandwich.
Now let’s make this clear: it was a little after seven thirty on a Sunday morning—not a time, you might think, for virtual strangers to start quizzing a girl on her life and career path. “I’m going to be a social worker,” I said. “You know, to help people. Think about the needs of others. Devote myself to—um—social well-being.”
“Oh, I see. You’ve just finished the training, then?”
“Yes. I have a master’s degree.” Well, almost.
Paul looked interested. “Really? So what kind of social work do you do? What do you specialize in?”
“Family issues,” I blurted, and then felt myself turn four shades of puce. “That is, I think so. Possibly. If I—that is, if I—”
“If you—?” he prompted.
“It’s very complex,” I said seriously. “Government funding. Limited opportunities. Decline in welfare state. Recession. It’s not easy to know what you’re best at. Course only one year long. And—I’m only twenty-four,” I finished snappishly, detecting a faintly derisive glint in his eyes. “I don’t have to have everything sorted out yet, you know!”
“No, of course not,” Paul returned thoughtfully, collecting crumbs from the plate with his last morsel of bread. “So you’re done with your course, but you don’t actually know what interests you. I see. Perhaps—” tones very polite—“you’ll find out exactly what your focus is while you’re here?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Paul looked absolute innocence. “While you’re visiting Q, I mean. Perhaps you’ll have some sort of epiphany, a magical moment, and realize what it is you want to do. Since I assume—” he paused (“Go on,” I growled at him)—“given the state of the economy, you’re not just out here treading water. I assume you’re applying for jobs.”
“I applied for one in Cumbria a few weeks ago,” I said a little desperately, and Paul arched his eyebrows. “Did you, indeed? In what town?”
I swallowed. “Small place, you wouldn’t have heard of it.”
“Try me. I know Cumbria quite well as it happens; I have an aunt from Kendal. I spent much of my childhood boating on Lake Windermere, pretending to be in an Arthur Ransome novel. Beautiful part of the country! Has there been much immigration in the area recently? What’s the demographic these days?” He sat forward.
There was that lecture on “preparing for job interviews” held beneath the flickering lightbulb of Wolsey Hall 103, of course, but I slept my way straight through it. Una and I had hosted a particularly raucous party the night before (the police were called, but then, as Una said, if they
don’t
thump the door down the music isn’t loud enough). I woke up at one point to hear Professor Simscod talking about “demographic surveys” for interview research, then slumped under the chair and went back to sleep with my head propped on my ring-binder.
“Cumbria is an—er—rural community,” I asserted now, hopefully. “Cumbria is in the Lake District. Cumbria is known for two things, lakes and hills.”
(Think of something, think of something—)
And then (it was as if a light had gone on in my head): “You know, there are some really interesting parallels between Cumbria and Connecticut,” I continued, determinedly wrestling my serpentine adversary. “That is to say, youth centered in urban areas, older people in the countryside. I think there are fascinating opportunities for research, actually. For an—um—
comparative investigation.
In fact I’m hoping to get more
perspective
on those
compelling
cross-cultural issues by doing some volunteer work here in Connecticut next week.”
Paul looked definitely impressed. “Really? That’s fascinating. Where will you be working?”
There was a small card in a shop window the day Q and Tom and
I first went into Sussex. “Summer Volunteer Wanted, Ten Hours a Week”—
“I’m going to work as a volunteer assistant at the Quiet Lanes Elder Care Home in Sussex,” I announced superbly. “I’m very much looking forward to it. I’m intrigued to see how geriatric care—um—happens in Connecticut. Cumbria, Connecticut, I think the similarity is more than just beginning with C, you know? I think there’s a potential research paper here. I’m going to look after Samuel and help Q in the mornings, then work at the Home in the afternoons, and in the evenings—I’ve got a political blog to write!”
Paul wiped his mouth carefully, took a last sip of his coffee, and stood up. “Then you are a very energetic young woman. What’s your blog about?”
“Oh, it’s an activist thing,” I said airily. “You wouldn’t be interested. Right now I’m writing a piece about ships’ fuel. And—um—clouds. Big dark clouds. With rain in them. Oh, you can’t just sit around anymore these days, waiting for jobs to come to you, you know! You’ve got to take the initiative. In fact, I need to get back to work on that blog, as it happens, so if you’ll excuse me…
thank
you…”
I stood up and stalked past him out of the kitchen, leaning up against the wall in the hallway once I was out of sight.
Safe. As long as he didn’t ask me for the Web address of my blog, of course. (If the worst came to the worst, I decided, I’d direct him to Badger’s www.ecowarriorsunite.blogspot.com, although then he’d probably think me insane. Badger’s stated goal, in big black type across the banner head, was to “smash a fist in the ugly face of the Industrial Revolution.” He had several postings on the evil threat to world peace posed by electricity.) And I also had to hope Paul wouldn’t come back next week and ask why I wasn’t down at Quiet Lanes, washing old dears.
After wiping my face and splashing water into my eyes, I went outside barefoot; the deck was wonderfully warm on my soles. “Are you and Paul on better terms yet?” Q hissed at me anxiously, sud
denly appearing from the garden with Samuel strewn over her shoulder. Her sun hat had slipped down rakishly over one eye, as had his; they looked oddly twin. “We thought we’d leave you two to sort it all out. The sparks were flying last night, my goodness…”
I was just beginning to scoff at the idea of
sparks
(the man is as boring as a drill bit, really) when I heard his voice unexpectedly close behind me. “I wanted to find you,” he said coolly to Q. I slipped myself into the hammock on the deck—I didn’t care if he’d heard!—armed with a fat, fragrant copy of
Vogue
and a free sample of some very appealing pink nail polish.
“I wonder if you and Tom could spare me a moment?” Paul went on politely. “I have a proposition to put to you both.”
Q, looking surprised, explained that Tom had gone on ahead to the beach. “Let’s walk on together and find him, then,” Paul said, gesturing with his hand for my sister to precede him down the steps. “You see, I’ve recently heard of a job opportunity that—it’s just possible—may interest you
both.”
When they’d gone, and while the first coat of “Amour En Rose” was drying on my dusty toes, I called Alison to tell her everything. “He sounds awful,” she agreed (I could hear Geoffrey pulling the cat’s tail in the background). “What an awful man, Jeanie. So snide, so condescending! Why do you think Tom is even
friends
with someone like that? How can Q possibly put up with him?”
Q
I
’ve got an idea: hear me out, okay?” Paul began, smiling. We were walking together along the seashore to find Tom, Samuel tucked into a baby carrier attached to my chest. The waves were a bright sparkling green; the gulls were wheeling smoothly in the warm air above us, and the sea was dotted with white sailboats as we crunched along the shells.
“A friend of my father’s owns a small law practice in Cheasford, a town just along the coast a few miles from here. Kenton Tyler—that’s his name—is looking for someone to take it over so he can retire. He’s hoping to find one lawyer—or a couple, ideally—willing to work with him for a few months, get the ropes and the feel of the place, help him put a bit more money aside, and then when the clients are comfortable with the transition he’ll pull out and let the new people take over the practice.”
I stared. “You don’t mean—you
do
mean—wait, Paul, do you mean
us,
taking over a law practice, here? Tom and me?
Here?”
Paul glanced down at me, and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Not what you were expecting to hear, I guess. But Tom told me the other day he was tempted to consider a serious change of career path. He says he can’t hack hundred-hour weeks anymore. And firm work isn’t going to get any better in these economic times.”
“That’s true—”
“You know, there’s a lot to recommend life up here, Q. Cheaper real estate, more square footage, not to mention good, safe public schooling. The usual benefits of suburban life. Didn’t you grow up in the countryside? Ah—there’s Tom—”
We saw him just ahead, skipping stones across the surface of the water. My husband was bent down, knees almost in the damp sand, with a small pile of rounded rocks collected beside him. As he let the stones fly, with a practiced flick of the wrist, there was an expression of intense concentration on his face.
“Hey, Tom—walk with us,” Paul suggested, and Tom, glancing up, dropped the stone in his hand. It fell with a soft
tink
on the pile he had amassed. We set off along the edge of the waves.
Tom listened respectfully to Paul’s account of the firm, its client base, its advantages and disadvantages, and Kenton’s own personality (“Kinda eccentric, but a good old-fashioned lawyer”), then caught my eye behind his back.
“You should go and meet him,” Paul was saying seriously. “You wouldn’t have to make a commitment up front. You could live here, in this house, for as long as you need, and spend a few months with Kenton to get the feel of a rural practice. Of course it would mean resigning from Crimpson…”
I recognized the look on Tom’s face. “Well, quite. But look, Paul, when Q and I said we were thinking of a change I don’t think we meant anything quite as dramatic as
that.”
He pulled his ear a little helplessly. “We were thinking of another pair of firm jobs, or perhaps Q could take some time off for a few years, until Samuel’s in school—”
“Another firm job? Get real.” Paul picked up a large rock now and threw it overarm, hard, into the sea. There was a pause, then a sharp answering
plop
in the deeper, cooler part of the sea, fifty yards out from the shore. “If you take a job at a less prestigious firm you’ll work fractionally shorter hours for substantially less interesting work, Tom. And if Q takes much more time off, she’ll not only
lose her job at Schuster she’ll effectively quit the field. Law partners don’t take kindly to ‘mommy breaks.’ They’re looking for any and every excuse to hack out ‘dead wood’ at the moment.”
Again, for a split second, Tom and I exchanged looks.
“Seems to me you haven’t fully grasped the reality of your situation,” Paul was saying, picking up another rock and letting it fly off into the sea. The water splashed; a surprised gull leaped into the air. “Lawyers don’t work flexi-time, not in a Wall Street firm, and certainly not now. The pressure out there is intense. It’s time for you guys to face facts.”
“Paul,” Tom replied, assuming reasonable tones, “that’s obviously true, but Q and I are overqualified for a rural practice. Just because we’re parents now doesn’t mean we want to spend our days drawing up wills and divorces, you know! There’s got to be a job that will let us work flexible hours, but that we’ll still find interesting, challenging…”
“Name it,” Paul said coolly. “And as for Kent’s job: you think you’re overqualified to work here? You think rural practice is boring? Okay, if that’s what you think: go and meet Kent, I dare you,” he added. “See what his practice has to offer, then do a cost-benefit analysis. Don’t reject the idea out of hand.
“But look, obviously I have other suggestions,” he went on. “Justin Van der Bossche at Prince was always a fan of yours, Tom; so if you want to go back to ‘big firm’ law, I’m sure he’d be willing to interview you.”
Tom looked up sharply; I could tell he was flattered. “Justin? Really?” he asked, surprised, and Paul nodded.
“He was very impressed by the way you handled the Maccabee Brothers a few years back. Oh, and in the meantime, I can suggest some consulting work; I have useful connections at DeVelt which might help you span the transition from Crimpson. For when you actually—resign.”