A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (14 page)

‘Good. I’m glad.’

‘It’s much more fun than Farcer’s for a start. And I have more to do. I like to be busy. And there seems more scope, somehow. I can’t really explain but it’s much more satisfying.’

He said, ‘You seem to expect a lot out of your job. And you certainly put a lot into it.’

Their drinks arrived and she took a long draught of hers before answering. ‘Well, there’s no other way really, as far as I can see. It must be hell to spend eight hours a day wishing you were doing something else.’

‘A lot of people do.’

‘Yes. It’s sad. I used to think about that at school when they were trying to find careers for us all; what hope had they got when at least half of us were bound to end up snarling behind a counter in Woolworth’s. There was this one poor careers mistress and she was supposed to sort us all out, hundreds of us, and find the right little niche for each one. It was ridiculous.’

He smiled. ‘But she succeeded with you.’

‘Well, I was easy. If you say shorthand and typing they’re happy. They’ve got you pegged. It’s up to you what you do with it. If you say almost anything, in fact, they’re happy. It’s the don’t knows they can’t stand—and that’s about ninety per cent unfortunately.’

Manson said, ‘Your parents must be very proud of you.’

‘Oh yes, they are.’

‘Do you see them very often now they’re divorced?’

‘Now and then.’

He sensed a sudden reticence: he must have put a foot wrong there. Perhaps she did not want to be reminded that she had confided in him about the divorce. Maybe she regretted speaking frankly the other day. There was only one way to deal with that.

‘Rather like me and my daughter. Now she’s married I only see her occasionally. It’s funny, you can split a family as much by a marriage as by a divorce.’

She was listening as if she cared. ‘I take it you don’t get on with your son-in-law, is that it? Or is it just that you didn’t want your daughter to get married so soon?’

‘Both,’ said Manson grimly.

Sarah turned her glass round and round. He noticed how slender her wrists were. Bony and fragile. Like Prue’s. Golden skin over sharp little bones. ‘Why did you let her if she was under age?’

‘She was pregnant.’

‘Oh.’ She looked away for a moment then back, very direct. ‘I’m sorry. It was rude of me to ask.’

‘Not at all. I expect I’d have told you anyway. I don’t seem able to talk about anything else. My wife says I’m becoming a bore on the subject.’ He tried to make this sound light and trivial, as if he did not take it seriously.

Sarah said, ‘That’s how my sister got married, too. It’s crazy, isn’t it. Your whole life decided for you, just like that.’

‘Yes, that’s just how I feel about Prue.’

‘I used to look at Barbara in amazement and wonder how she could be so stupid. I suppose that sounds very arrogant but I did.’

‘Did you get on … as sisters?’

Sarah smiled at the very idea. ‘We fought like hell. Right from the start. As soon as we were old enough to lift our arms we were hitting each other. There was only a year between us so that made us pretty equal. My mother had to
spend most of her time prising us apart—she was a kind of perpetual referee.’

Manson said, warmed by the description, ‘You make it sound fun. But I speak as an only child.’

‘You were lucky. No, really, I mean it. There’s no fun in fighting.’

‘But surely it wasn’t really serious, was it?’

Sarah laughed. ‘Oh yes, it was. Deadly serious. It was pure hatred, that’s how serious it was.’ She paused. ‘The curious thing is, though, that it made a sort of bond. In later life, I mean. Now, for instance, if I move flats, Barbara’s the first person I give my address to, though I know perfectly well she’ll pass it on to some relative I don’t want to see. But I have to keep in touch with her. I’m concerned about her and her horrid squalling kids. And I think she’s concerned about me and my life. We have a sort of grudging respect for each other—perhaps you only get it between sworn enemies. We’re sort of like—oh, I don’t know—say, Saladin and Richard. We’ve been in so many fights we almost admire each other.’

Manson said, ‘I was right. I
have
missed a lot. Are her children really horrid?’

‘Yes, revolting.’

‘Don’t you like children?’ What would Prue’s baby be like?

‘Some children, yes. But not Barbara’s. They’re so scruffy—it offends me. That sounds awful, I know, but I’m a terribly methodical person and I can’t bear mess. My room is always tidy for instance—that was one of the things we used to fight about because Barbara likes to live in chaos and we had to share a room at home. I was forever bashing her over the head because she’d dropped her clothes on the floor instead of putting them away. God, what a prig that makes me sound.’

‘Go on.’

‘Oh you
can’t
be interested.’

‘Yes, I am. Really.’ He found it all intensely soothing: the vitality of her description, the violence of the events, the clash of personalities—everything. He had noticed before the animation with which people speak of their past, their youth or their childhood.

‘Well, now when I go to see her it’s all completely chaotic, just the way she wanted to make our room. Everything stays where it falls—clothes, toys, bits of bread. And with three kids you can imagine how it mounts up. And they’re
dirty
. Oh, I know you can’t keep kids clean all the time, they have to play and get mucky or they’ll grow up with psychological problems or something, but you
can
fling them all in the bath at night and get the worst of it off.’

He was laughing outright. ‘Sarah, you
are
doing me good. How old are these monsters?’

‘Seven, five and three. It’s slightly better now with two of them at school, but before it was absolute bedlam and still is in the holidays.’ She grinned apologetically. ‘Maybe that’s what put me off marriage.’

Manson said, ‘I have twin boys aged ten. But they’re not quite like that. Have you really been put off marriage?’

She said seriously, ‘I don’t know. I’ve said that so often I believe my own propaganda.’

‘Why? Is it a good line with boy-friends?’

She laughed a trifle guiltily, as though he had caught her out. ‘Well, it helps; it makes them feel safe. But I think I probably do mean it, up to a point. After all, what are the main reasons for marriage? Children and financial security. Well, if you’re not madly maternal that knocks out one reason. And unless you marry a millionaire you’re probably not much better off, in an average marriage, with two of you on forty pounds a week instead of one of you on twenty. Well, are you?’

He said wrily, ‘You make it sound like a dying institution.’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know much about it really. I’m sure it’s lovely if it works.’

‘But in your view it seldom does.’

‘I don’t know. My mother’s happy enough now, in her way, but she’s rich, she’s an exception. When I think about marriage I think about shabby middle-aged women getting on buses with baskets of shopping. All varicose veins and pincurls. Getting excited over threepence off Daz.’

Her glass was empty. Manson said, ‘Let me get you another drink.’

She glanced at her watch. ‘I’d love one but I ought to be going.’

Something drained out of him, some bright growing hope of being amused and distracted like this for the rest of the evening. ‘What a pity. I was going to ask you to have dinner with me. My wife is away with the boys and I hate my own company. I’m hardly ever alone and I’d no idea I was so bad at it.’

She hesitated. He could see she was thinking, weighing up the invitation. He wished he knew what was passing through her mind.

‘Well …’ Pause. ‘If I could just make a phone call. You see, we take it in turns to cook, at the flat.’

Was that all? ‘Yes, of course.’ He had thought to be ousted by a boy-friend at least.

Sarah stood up. ‘I won’t be a minute. But are you
sure?
I know I talk too much, are you sure you can stand it?’

He smiled. ‘It’s just what I need.’

* * *

The phone rang for ages. She was almost ready to give up when he answered. She said hullo in a weary voice.

‘Oh, it’s you. Sorry, love, I was in the bath.’

‘Geoff, I’m sorry, could we call off this evening? Only I’ve got the curse and I feel lousy. I’ve only just left the office,
I’ve been sitting in the loo for an hour, and I just want to go home and crawl into bed.’

‘You poor old thing.’ He hated illness. ‘Well, okay then. What a shame.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ She kept her voice low and pain-wracked. ‘But I really feel rotten, and I’d be no good for anything.’

‘Shall I ring you tomorrow?’

‘Yes. That would be nice. I’ll be better then.’

* * *

That night she could not sleep. She had, when she got home, the same elated sensation she had felt on walking off-stage from a school play, or latterly on parking a car after speeding. She was outside herself. For most of the evening she had behaved normally, alternating bright conversation with attentive listening as and when required. She had been, as usual, the expected person, until almost the very end. And now it was surprise that kept her awake. He was simply not the type. She had worked with a good many people and some of them had flirted with her: she reckoned she could tell within minutes of shaking hands if one was the type. And Manson was not. Or had not been. Over dinner, over wine, over coffee and brandy, making each other laugh, discussing books and authors, parents and children (she had been mildly astonished at the way he seemed to think all young people lived a life of riotous, almost orgiastic fun)—all that time, though she warmed to him as someone reliable, someone adult and dependable, they had been merely good companions, only one stage removed from an office relationship. She had been careful not to take advantage in any way, or even to give him grounds for thinking that she might take advantage in the future. She kept telling herself: He is lonely, at a loose end, and I remind him of his daughter. That’s all. Why shouldn’t he invite me to dinner? And tomorrow we ignore it. I can perfectly well play that game. Then, safe in this
resolution, she had allowed herself to see him as a man instead of an employer. He was, she found, surprisingly attractive for his age; she assumed he must be nearing fifty. Normally she avoided married men, and since most older men were married, older men as well. This was less from conscience than convenience. Not having a place of her own she could not afford to date people who could not take her home. And it would be boring not to be able to telephone freely, boring to worry about who might see you together in the street, at the theatre, over dinner, boring not to be able to send cards, give birthday presents, mention names to your friends. And if they were family men, the children would worry her,—little faces pressed up against the window waiting for Daddy to come home and kiss them goodnight, and Daddy working late at the office, making love to his fancy woman. It was like a Victorian melodrama, but that was how she had thought of it and so it had been easy to avoid. She did not want to be involved in anything so tiresome and so nearly ludicrous.

But with Manson these images did not occur to her. It was so obvious that nothing was intended, that it was simply the pleasant evening and the enjoyable dinner it appeared to be. She could afford to relax and enjoy herself. She kept thinking what a nice person he was—gentle, sympathetic, vulnerable. She even felt a little sorry for him. It was only when they were in the cab and he was taking her home that the atmosphere changed, the feeling tipped over into something else. She knew they were both aware of it. Suddenly they were close together in a small dark space and it was not at all like being in the restaurant. They had both run out of conversation instantly and she had prayed for the taxi to get lost. It was suddenly unbearable to think that in a few minutes they would be separated; it seemed wrong that the evening should end so flatly and abruptly. She wanted something more.

She rebuked herself sternly for being so idiotic: sitting in
a taxi with her boss and giving in to such adolescent ideas. But she knew she was not imagining the atmosphere, and he was as silent as she was. The silence gradually built up until it became so tense that she felt bound to say something, anything, to break it, and she had said in a voice that was meant to be prim and polite but came out disturbed and intense, ‘I’ve enjoyed this evening very much.’

He looked at her then (for they had both been pointedly staring out of opposite windows) and the expression she saw made her want to take his face in her hands and stroke it. She was quite alarmed to feel such a wave of tenderness for him.

He said, ‘So have I,’ as if he meant it, and then went on quite casually and softly, so that she almost thought she had imagined the words, ‘It’s just as well I have to get the last train, it will spare you the embarrassment of fighting off my elderly advances.’

And she had said, ‘Why should I fight?’

He kissed her then and she kissed him and there seemed for a while to be quite a little fight going on about whose turn it was next. She was aware that this was what she had wanted to happen all evening, and amazed that she could have deceived herself so efficiently. He said, ‘You’re very lovely,’ and she said, ‘So are you,’ and they kissed some more until she felt distinctly uncomfortable and assumed that he did too. But they kept their arms round each other, their hands out of use.

Manson said, ‘This won’t do,’ and drew back, and lit a cigarette. Sarah, shaking, said, ‘Can I ask—do you want to make love?’ and he said, almost angrily, ‘What do you think? Of course I do.’

‘So do I.’

The taxi drew up with a jolt and the driver demanded, ‘This it?’ Manson cursed softly and paid him and they both
climbed out. As the taxi drew away Sarah said sadly, ‘You should have kept him, there’s nowhere we can go.’

‘I know.’ Manson drew her to him in a darkened doorway and held her close and kissed her soundly. She could feel him pressing hard against her and she liked it very much except that it made her ache inside. ‘Serve me right,’ he said bitterly, in acknowledgment.