Getting It Right (39 page)

‘Good-bye, Gavin. I’ll let you know if there’s any change – either way.’ She rang off.

The telephone reminded him of Minnie. It was strange that she hadn’t rung at all. No, it wasn’t really. Any ordinary person who’d been ditched as he’d ditched her on
Saturday would feel that that was that. They might be angry about it, but pride would prevent most people from any further efforts to get in touch. But Minnie was not an ordinary person – in
that sense: she was a bit mad or something. Well, Harry had said that if he really felt bad about her, he ought to go and see her and tell her she needed help. That’s what he’d better
do. Upstairs again, he realized that all the records would have to come off the bed so that he could sleep in it, and be put back tomorrow, preferably before he went to work. In his bath he thought
that Chopin and Degas might be a good double to start Jenny with, but he lay until the water was cold, unable to think which book would catch her.

‘I didn’t know you had a car.’

‘It’s my father’s. He doesn’t mind me using it now and then. I thought it would be warmer than my bike.’

‘It’s quieter too. For talking, I mean.’

A moment later, she said: ‘If I had known, I wouldn’t have worn my track suit.’

He didn’t know what to say to that. Why wouldn’t she, he wondered. It was a beautiful evening; a bright, light blue sky and a tranquil golden light on the fields and trees; chestnuts
were flowering, their candles tipped with light; the young leaves on the oaks were livid and molten from the sun. They passed two donkeys in a field who stood motionless with their heads
lowered.

‘They look as though they’re waiting for something awful to happen,’ Jenny said.

‘They always look like that.’

‘It’s like the country!’ she exclaimed a few moments later.

‘Well, we are in Hertfordshire.’

‘It must be very nice to come back to in the evenings.’

‘I usually come by train, and that isn’t as nice as this, but it’s still good when the train comes above ground.’

She didn’t say anything, and he glanced at her to see if she was all right. Her small useful-looking hands rested on what would have been her lap if she had not been wearing trousers, and
she was gazing contentedly out of the window.

‘It’s nice in a car, isn’t it?’ she said a while later. ‘You see more than in a bus somehow.’

‘More than on a bike, anyway.’

‘If I had a little car,’ she said, ‘I’d take Andrew for picnics in the country. I didn’t realize it was so near.’

‘I missed Andrew tonight.’

‘I’d settled him down. My mum wanted a quiet evening: she’s got a friend coming to see her . . . Oh yes, you saw him, didn’t you; coming up the street just as we left.
The bloke I said, “Hullo” to.’

‘The army bloke?’

‘He’s a sergeant major or something.’

‘You sound as though you don’t like him.’

‘I don’t have any feelings about him at all!’ she retorted, so Gavin knew that she didn’t like him, but was certainly not going to ask why she didn’t.

They drove in silence until he had crossed the main road into Barnet and he turned left into Potters Lane.

‘This looks as though it is going to be country, but it isn’t,’ he warned her. ‘It suddenly breaks out into suburbia.’

‘Gavin! You don’t mind me calling you Gavin?’

‘No, I don’t at all.’

‘Do you mind me asking you something?’

‘No,’ he said, but more warily.

‘Do your parents know about Andrew?’

‘No. No. I haven’t told anyone. I thought you didn’t want me to.’

‘I didn’t really. I just wanted to know.’

‘Anyway, my parents are away.’

‘Are they?’

‘My aunt was in a road accident. My mother’s gone to see her and look after her children. My father’s gone with her.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry about your aunt,’ she added. After that she was silent.

She remained silent, after they had arrived, and he had unlocked the front door and gone ahead to the kitchen to open windows. She was still standing in the hall, when he came back to find
her.

‘Just got to heat up some soup,’ he said. ‘Come in here, I’ve got some wine.’

She followed him into the kitchen. He’d mixed the cream with the soup and had got it in a saucepan. He felt exhilarated to be organizing everything.

‘I’m not much of a cook,’ he said. ‘It’s just soup and ham and salad.’

He saw her looking at the empty table through the alcove to the living room. ‘We’re eating upstairs in my room. I’ve taken the main tray up. There’s just the soup.’
He poured two glasses of wine and handed her one. She looked frightened, and did not take it. ‘You can have a soft drink if you like,’ he said. ‘Hey. What’s the
matter?’

‘I just have to tell you something.’

He waited – he was beginning to feel nervous.

‘I hope you don’t think . . . I’m not the sort of girl that – I mean just because I’ve had Andrew doesn’t mean that – ’ She’d gone her
usual, but unusual shade of pale scarlet. ‘I mean – I may have got it all wrong. I didn’t think you were that kind of person. If you are I mean.’

He looked at her in amazement. She was not only scarlet, she was trembling. She was afraid of him! She was probably the first person in his life who’d been afraid of him. He felt
confounded; then touched; poor little thing, to be afraid of
him
! She must have had some pretty terrifying experiences to make her feel that. He knew what it felt like to be afraid of
people. It must be much worse for a girl.

‘Listen,’ he said, talking very quietly in case noise made things worse, ‘I just thought you’d like to come and have a meal and we could talk about the list, and perhaps
I’d play you a record, or read you something; to show you how marvellous some things can be. I asked you when my parents were away because it isn’t their sort of thing, you see.
They’d think it funny. That’s why we’re going to my room – because everything like that’s up there. I certainly wouldn’t dream of’ – he was blushing
now – ‘well – taking advantage of you or anything like that.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well – that’s all right then. Fine. I’m sorry I brought it up.’ Then, looking down at herself rather disparagingly, he felt, she added:
‘I hope you don’t think that I think that everybody – ’ but she didn’t finish because, just then, the soup boiled over. It made a bit of a mess. ‘Oh, sorry!
It’s my fault,’ she said; ‘let me help.’ So they cleaned it up together, and there seemed to be quite a lot of soup left in the pan. It was a relief to have something to do
for both of them.

‘Would you like wine? Or, if not, there’s some Express Dairy orange juice?’

‘Oh, I’d like wine, please. Nicer than those funny drinks they gave us the other night,’ she said after tasting it. He’d chosen a white wine – he didn’t know
that much about wine, but he thought that girls preferred white. He liked red, himself. It was rather sweet.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said.

‘If I take the soup and the glasses, could you bring the bottle?’

She nodded.

He’d arranged the records on the bed as previously planned, and he’d turned his chest of drawers into a sort of side-table with the ham and salad on it. He’d bought a bunch of
wallflowers and the room smelled sweetly of them. He’d put his low table, and two chairs that were too high for it but it couldn’t be helped, a nice long way from the bed.

‘Here we are,’ he said – just like his father, he immediately thought.

She stood in the doorway. For a moment he thought she was scared again, but she was just looking all round at the room – taking it in.

‘It’s lovely up here,’ she said. ‘I like your mirror with the birds and roses and things. It’s beautiful. And your lovely sofa thing. Is that what it’s
called?’

‘It’s a chaise-longue,’ he said, and nearly told her about Mrs Patrick Campbell and the deep, deep peace of the double bed after the hurly burly of the chaise-longue, but
double beds seemed quite the wrong subject just then.

‘A chaise – longue,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You’ve got a terrific vocabulary, haven’t you? I mean you say more words than most people do.’

‘I read quite a bit.’ He was secretly flattered that she’d noticed.

He poured the soup into Mrs Lamb’s soup plates with ferns round them.

‘Come and have the soup before it gets cold.’ (A bit like Mum, he thought.)

They both sat down and started to have it.

‘It’s very nice,’ she said, ‘what is it?’

‘Lobster. I’m afraid it’s only out of a tin . . . I put cream in it.’

‘You can taste the cream.’ She licked her spoon and said: ‘But if, when you’re reading, you come across a word that you don’t know what it means, what do you
do?’

‘Look it up. In a dictionary.’

‘So you need one of those, then.’

‘It’s fun having one.’

‘Are they expensive?’

‘They come in different sizes and prices. I can lend you a little one if you like.’

‘Thanks. Do you have a lot of them, then?’

‘I happen to have two. A pocket dictionary I’ve had since I was at school, and then I bought the Shorter Oxford a couple of years ago.’ He took the soup plates away and put the
dish of ham on the table. He had made a French dressing for his salad which he now poured on to it, and mixed it thoroughly. ‘Help yourself,’ he said.

‘Why do you want the shorter one? ‘Cos you know the longer one?’

‘No, the shorter one’s longer than the one I had to begin with. It has more words in it. There’s the complete one, but that’s too expensive for me. Have to save up for
it.’

‘I see. It’s a lovely meal, Gavin.’ She smiled at him. ‘Nicer than the meal we had the other night.’ Her smile was quite new to him; he could not remember her
smiling at work.

They had some more wine, and he started telling her about Chopin. He explained that he was going to play her the music as orchestrated for the ballet
Les Sylphides.

‘I’ve seen some ballet dancing,’ she said. ‘It’s when people go on their toes, isn’t it? Very pretty. I wouldn’t have seen that one, would I? It was in
a Variety Performance, on television.’

‘You might have seen a bit of it.’

‘It was about swans,’ she said. ‘But they didn’t have a swan. It was just two people.’

‘That’s another one. This is a ballet that Fokine did for Diaghilev. I’ll tell you about them later.’

‘Gavin! Could I just go to the toilet first?’

‘Of course. It’s down the stairs and the first on the right.’

He had the record ready on his machine, and waited in a fever of impatience. He desperately wanted her to fall in love with Chopin, and Chopin was only the first step: they wouldn’t have
time for much more in one evening. If she didn’t like Chopin, she mightn’t be prepared to have a second go. When she returned, he said:

‘You could lie on the chaise-longue, if you like. It’s very comfortable for listening to music; I often do.’

She sat rather primly at one end of it, bolt upright, hands clasped together. ‘It’s just as you like, of course, but I should lie on it. Far more comfortable.’

‘I’d have to take my shoes off. Don’t want to dirty it.’

‘Do.’

He waited while she did this, and lay cautiously back with one of his orange cushions behind her head.

‘Right. Chopin.’

She was very quiet all through the record, quiet and quite still. He tried not to watch her too obviously – sat well away from her, but her feathery head with its upright, honey-coloured
hair was in view and sometimes, when she moved her head, an ear with a gold ring glinting in it. When it was over, he took the record off and put it carefully back into its sleeve, before he came
over to her end of the room.

‘Did you like it?’

‘It was
pretty
,’ she said, ‘really nice! I could imagine them dancing. You know, wide dresses with sequins on them – really romantic.’

For a moment, he was outfaced; the words seemed faint and cosy for someone he revered; then he thought, ‘What the hell; she enjoyed it, that’s the point,’ because, looking at
her, it was clear that she had. She had that small glow about her that he recognized came from and followed enjoyment. ‘Stage Two,’ he said to himself.

‘I’ve got some pictures to show you. They show you what that sort of dancer looked like. I think I’ll put the book on the table as it’s quite large, and then we can both
look at it.’

He put the Degas book on the table and they sat on the floor and he showed her some of it. She didn’t take much notice of the drawings, but the paintings enthralled her. ‘Look at
her
! She’s just whizzing across the floor – you feel you’ll have to catch her! Oh – aren’t they
pretty
! I wish I could dance like that with a little
black ribbon round my throat!’

When he closed the book, she said: ‘And did you find me a book?’

He hadn’t, but he didn’t want to tell her that. ‘Tell me what kind of book you think you’d like.’

She sat back on her heels, considering. ‘Well – I like things to
happen
, and I don’t like the people just to talk all the time, but the books I read at school used to
have very long descriptions in them. And I don’t want to read about people falling in love and all that. I don’t know, really.’ She looked hopefully at him.

‘Well – ’ he was thinking hard, and quite suddenly, from nowhere, he had an idea. He remembered that, last Christmas, he’d bought a copy of
The Secret Garden
for
Judy, and then Marge said she’d read it. So he’d read it himself, and simply kept it.

‘Don’t mind the inscription,’ he said when he’d found it. ‘I bought it for my niece, but she’d read it.’

She took it. ‘How old is your niece?’ she asked.

‘She’s nine.’ Then he saw her face and said: ‘Okay, it’s a children’s book, but
I
enjoyed it. When books are really good, it doesn’t matter
– anybody can enjoy them.’

‘I see. What’s it about?’

‘What it says. A secret garden. Some children discover it, and bring it to life.’

‘I’ll try it then,’ she said, but a trifle sulkily.

‘I think I’d better take you home, now. We’ve both got to work in the morning.’