A Surrey State of Affairs (26 page)

Dear readers, I have had a terrible shock. Despite the warm weather, I have goose bumps jostling underneath my peach sleeveless top. Perhaps you can guess what I am referring to. Perhaps you share Tanya’s suspiciousness. In case you are of a more naïve and trusting disposition, I had better explain.

I was tidying the kitchen this morning, wiping the smears of jam from the place mats and sorting through the odds and ends of paperwork that Natalia never manages to keep off the table. Tanya came in just as I held Gerald’s latest postcard in my hand. She caught sight of it over my shoulder and I heard her catch her breath. Presuming that she too was curious about his romantic plight, I began filling her in on the whole story—Rosemary running off with a trapeze artist, my heart-to-heart with Gerald in the tea shop, Miss Hughes and her shrinking skirt, and so forth up until the present state of affairs. Tanya kept saying “But Connie…” and trying to interrupt, but I insisted that she hear me out. Once I had finished, she folded her arms over her bump, shook her head, and said, “Don’t you see?”

Then she explained that, to an outsider, it was glaringly obvious that Gerald didn’t have a thing for Miss Hughes. She explained her interpretation of the events. At first, I could hardly give credence to what she was suggesting. I am a respectable woman. I had thought that Gerald, for all his crumpled trousers and emotional volatility, was a respectable man. Tanya waved the card in my face, determined to prove that he was not. I looked at it again. The illustration was of Winnie the Pooh unscrewing a jar of honey. Surely that was innocent of anything other than a little misplaced mawkishness. Then I looked at the words. I picked up his earlier postcard. I looked at the words. A clammy, prickly
feeling spread down my spine. In one horrible, wrenching moment, I knew that she was right. How could he? How could I not have realized?

Tanya asked if I had replied to the postcard, and I mechan-ically repeated my innocuous note. She went white, despite her Johnson’s Holiday Skin. Before I could agonize any lon-ger, however, I had to leave for Church Flowers. Pru descended on me in a cloud of Lily of the Valley perfume, fluttering her hands, telling me how delighted she was—David and Ruth had been to the cinema once and to dinner twice, and Ruth had already given away her caftan to Cats in Need. But I was too distracted to revel in this success. All I could visualize was Gerald, standing in the belfry, clutching his rope and staring at me with longing in his eyes. No matter how much I tried to concentrate on wrapping my twine tightly around the rose stems, the image remained.

How could he? What to do if he comes around?

I shall hide. That is what I shall do. I shall hide.

4 P.M.

He is outside! Dear readers, this is terrible. I can see him through the crack in the blinds in the study, pacing back and forth on the gravel, a bunch of red roses in his hand. I have told Natalia, Mark, and Tanya not to open the door on any account. I have put the chain on. I am a prisoner in my own home.

I sincerely wish that Jeffrey wasn’t allergic to dogs so that we would have a slavering Alsatian at the ready to set loose on him. Perhaps I should buy one of those large gloves and train Darcy to attack.

I have just taken another peek out the window. Thank heavens. He is walking away, holding the bouquet at a sorry angle.

  
FRIDAY, JUNE 6

I cannot hide forever. I must resolve this situation. As far as I see it, I have the following options:

Tell Jeffrey all and allow him to defend my honor as he sees fit.

Tell Gerald that I am joining a convent.

Convince Jeffrey that we should emigrate.

Shave my head and start dressing like Jacqui Smith in order to dampen his ardor.

I talked these through with Tanya, but she seemed to think a note would do the trick. I thought for a long time, and then drafted the following:

  
SATURDAY, JUNE 7

I hope the old adage that “No news is good news” holds true. The welcome mat was blessedly free of postcards from Gerald this morning, though I’m not sure if this is because he has been shamed into silence or because he knows better than to push his luck while Jeffrey is at home. My husband has a sturdy, rugged physique, even if the last thing he punched was the wall when England lost to Wales at rugby.

  
SUNDAY, JUNE 8

Still no word from Gerald. I went to see Mother alone, because Jeffrey said he wanted to mow the lawn while the weather was nice, and she once again raised her eyebrow as if to suggest that I must have done something terrible to have driven him away. I didn’t dare allude to Gerald, or so much as mention bell ringing. There is something about that look she gets that takes
me right back to the day I got caught stealing a piece of the Christmas cake she had been maturing for four months in the larder, whether or not I have anything to feel guilty about. Instead I told her the latest from Rupert, who has just been given a small promotion, and Sophie, who promises that she is practicing her French verbs “in her sleep.” Mother sniffed at the latter piece of news and asked what was wrong with speaking English slowly and clearly.

When I got back, Jeffrey was lying on our garden recliner, asleep, with a gin and tonic beside him and luxuriant, unmowed grass surrounding it to the rim. I felt too cowed to reprimand him.

  
MONDAY, JUNE 9

Still no word from Gerald, and mixed news from Tanya. This morning, as we were having our usual eleven o’clock coffee together, she announced that she had something to tell me.

“It’s good news, Connie,” she said, with a confident smile on her face. She has finally taken to wearing maternity tops—pretty, colorful, crossover things—which are a marked improvement from the old gym wear. “Idle Hands has taken off,” she said. “It was all Mark’s doing. He drew up a business plan with graphs and everything and now he’s found us an angel investor, just like on
Dragons’ Den
!” I had to admit that I found this talk of angels and dragons a little hard to follow—it reminded me of the computer games Rupert used to play—but I didn’t want to dampen Tanya’s enthusiasm, so I smiled encouragingly.

“The best thing is that the business plan included costing for new premises—well, when I say premises I mean a two-bedroom flat with an open-plan kitchen/dining room, but you get my drift. With this investment we can afford to rent our own place. We’ll be out of your hair!”

I bit down on my tea cake a little too hard, and felt my teeth
crunch together. I will miss her. Of course I am delighted that her business is a success, and that her baby will be born into a proper home of its own rather than having to be stowed away next to Jeffrey’s golf clubs, but I will still miss her company, her conversation. I gathered myself together quickly enough to congratulate her, then tried to concentrate fixedly on the time she switched off
Woman’s Hour
to put on a dreadful pop song by some woman called Katie Perry.

  
TUESDAY, JUNE 10

What, I wonder, does one wear to a bell-ringing practice in order to discourage the advances of a certain man while also having to fit comfortably into a safety harness? Burlap sacks are out of the question. I stood in front of my wardrobe for so long pondering the question that Natalia was driven to vacuuming around my feet. In the end I selected a pair of black boot-cut trousers and a gray cotton T-shirt that had begun to stretch with age, hoping to convey an impression of austerity, but without quite looking like a hag. I left off the sweep of dusky peach blush and mascara that I usually wear, put on my stone-colored raincoat, and left. I’m not sure the effect was entirely successful—or perhaps, more to the point, it was too successful. When I got to the belfry, Reginald asked me if I had caught the summer vomiting bug.

Then Gerald arrived, and I busied myself with strapping on my harness and arranging my helmet over my hair so that a few strands poked out to soften the impression of being as bald as a coot. It wasn’t until we had started ringing that I dared to look at him. Something had changed. He was staring straight ahead with a solemn expression on his face; he was wearing one of his old blue shirts, perfectly ironed; his nasal hair had been clipped. He didn’t speak a word to me all evening.

  
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11