Homework (4 page)

Read Homework Online

Authors: Margot Livesey

BOOK: Homework
3.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
 
We did at last have dinner with Lynne and Greg. The four of us spent a pleasant evening reminiscing about famous parties and demonstrations, and marvelling at the astoundingly
small amount of work we had got away with. Next day Lynne telephoned me at the office. After we had both said how much we had enjoyed the evening, she told me that she was ringing about a friend who was looking for accommodation.
“I'm not sure if I want to rent out the room at the moment,” I said.
“But you were saying only a few weeks ago how expensive it is to live alone.”
“I know, but Lewis has a lodger, and if I had one too there wouldn't be anywhere we could be alone together.”
“Celia, I don't think you should be planning your life around Lewis.”
“I'm not planning my life around him,” I said defensively. Only that morning I had refused to join an office outing to the National Theatre in case it conflicted with seeing Lewis.
“Of course,” said Lynne, “I don't know how Lewis is when you're alone together, but last night he certainly didn't give the impression of being about to settle down.”
“What do you mean?”
She began to repeat remarks he had made about travel plans, his ambition to work in New York. “And,” she said, “you'll forgive me saying this, but he doesn't seem that interested in you. I mean he obviously likes you, but if I hadn't known you were going out together, I would never have guessed.”
I managed to pretend that I was needed on another line and said goodbye. For a quarter of an hour I paced around my small office, thinking furious thoughts about Lynne. Then I consoled myself by remembering that she did not have any privileged source of information. She had not seen Lewis for years.
 
This conversation proved to be only the first of many in which Lynne tried to persuade me that Lewis and I were not ideally suited, and I, in spite of all the evidence supporting her
view, did my best to contradict her. Sometimes a whole week would pass without my being able to reach him. Then he would surface again, talking about business. He used Mike as an excuse not to invite me to his house in Clapham, but night after night I telephoned and no one answered. He rivalled Houdini in his ability to extricate himself from compromising situations. I often felt as if I had wandered into a hall of mirrors where illusion and reality could no longer be distinguished.
To Lynne, Gillian, and my other friends, my behaviour seemed like lunacy; I was too shy to explain what justified my persistence. In the dark with Lewis I experienced passions and pleasures that I had never known before, and it was this that made it hard for me to accept that he did not reciprocate my feelings. I could not grasp that for him the intensity of the event was matched by its brevity. One moment he could be sighing with passion over me, and half an hour later he was hurrying out of my flat, totally preoccupied with reaching a client in Tokyo.
 
As the months passed, Lewis became increasingly unreliable and I was not surprised when at the last minute he announced that he was too busy to come to Charlie and Nick's midsummer teaparty. I even welcomed his decision. His absence would give me a chance to see old friends without the sense of constraint that his presence engendered. Charlie and Nick had both been at York, and their annual party, given in honour of Nick's birthday, functioned as a reunion.
In previous years I had often met up with fellow guests at Charing Cross, but Lewis's change of plan had made me late, and I spotted no one either on the train to Maze Hill or on the short walk from the station. It was a beautiful day, warm and breezy, and my spirits lifted. As I opened the garden gate Nick's cat, Satan, who was lounging on the doorstep, rolled belly-up. Obediently I stooped to pat his slightly dusty fur.
The door was open, and I stepped inside. I found Nick in the kitchen. He was looking impressively boyish. His hair was cut shorter than I remembered, and he was deeply tanned.
He kissed me on the cheek. “We're all out in the garden,” he said. “I was just making a fresh pot of tea.”
“Happy birthday. You look wonderful.”
“Thank you, thank you. Not a day over thirty. This was my present from Charlie.” He fingered the creamy fabric of his shirt.
“It's lovely,” I said, and he reciprocated with some flattering remarks about my blue dress. I followed him outside. The long, sheeted table, spread with food, was surrounded by guests; everyone seemed to be engrossed in animated conversation. I saw Greg and Eve standing off to one side and went over to greet them.
Eve hugged my knees and Greg kissed me. “We were discussing which flowers Eve could pick,” he said. “Charlie and Nick keep this garden so fiendishly tidy that there doesn't seem to be a single dandelion, and scarcely any daisies either.”
“Are you complaining about our garden?” Charlie said. He proffered sandwiches from two mounded plates. “Cheese and cucumber, or egg salad. Celia, lovely to see you.”
“I want to pick flowers,” Eve said. “I want to pick flowers for Nick.”
“What a nice idea,” said Charlie. “Suppose you give me a hand with taking round the sandwiches, and then we can make a bouquet together.”
“Yes, please.”
Charlie led the way to the table, where he swiftly made up a small plate of sandwiches for Eve to carry. The two of them set off round the garden together.
“They spoil her rotten,” Greg said. “Where's Lewis?”
“He was too busy to come.”
“He's always too busy. Given how much he works, he ought to be president of the World Bank by now.”
Lynne approached. She was wearing a white dress made of
broderie anglaise
; the pattern of little holes in the fabric made it impossible not to wonder what lay beneath. “I've had this since we were at York,” she said, “and I thought if I couldn't wear it today, then I never could.” The three of us chatted for a few minutes before moving on to talk to people we saw less often. There was something enchanted about the afternoon: we were all, briefly, young and brilliant again, transported to those days at university when anything seemed possible.
After talking to one of Charlie's colleagues and several old friends, I found myself a bystander to a conversation about one of our more controversial lecturers. I had never actually met him, and after two or three anecdotes I wandered over to the table.
A short-haired woman wearing a checked shirt and jeans said hello. I suddenly recognised Mary.
“Have you tried the trifle?” she asked. “Charlie and Nick are the only people I know besides my mother who still make puddings.” She ladled a final dollop of cream into her bowl.
At York, Mary, with her long blond hair and costly clothes, had seemed the acme of sophistication; ten years later she was no less formidable, although in a very different way. I asked if she was still working as a translator.
“No, I have a bread-and-butter job in a bookshop, but I spend most of my time teaching classes in self-defence for women.”
“You mean like karate or judo?”
“It's a sort of grab bag of martial arts. I aim to teach skills that can be used by women of all ages and levels of physical fitness.”
I described my company's new policy on sexism in textbooks, a major step forward which Mary at once condemned
as inadequate. We drifted into conversation about mutual acquaintances. “Last time I spoke to Frances she told me that you and she had become neighbours in Peckham,” I said.
“Twenty minutes on brisk foot. Frances is a dear. I think she worries that I'll turn into a bag lady. She's always inviting me over for a square meal. What about Lewis Jenkins?” she asked. “I thought he might be here.”
What angel or demon prompted me to indicate merely vague recognition? Mary had just taken a mouthful of trifle, and there was a pause before she continued. “I work near his office so I run into him once in a while, and every time I see him, I swear he's with a different woman. A couple of weeks ago he came into the shop with someone I know slightly; she's a friend of a friend. Since then I've been wondering what to do. On the one hand I think I ought to tell her, so she'll know where she stands, and on the other, that seems like meddling.”
“Perhaps they're just friends,” I said. We were standing beside the table, and I laid down my plate, for fear that Mary would notice the shaking of my hands.
“No, there were too many little pats and gestures for that. They were all over each other.” Mary licked her spoon in a satisfied way and laid aside her plate. She stood straighter, with her arms folded, to pronounce judgement. “I'm afraid he's a textbook case, an intelligent, charming man whom you can't trust to go to the shops for a pint of milk.”
What did I say? I have no idea. Maybe Charlie came round with the teapot, or maybe Nick urged me to try the cake he had made. I left as soon as I could, pleading an evening engagement. On the train home I experienced despair, shame, fury, but also relief. I had felt at times almost mad in the face of his injured innocence. Even when I could smell the other women on him, he would be telling me that my suspicions were absurd, that I must stop being possessive and insecure. There was a bitter consolation in knowing that I was right.
Suddenly as the train rattled across Waterloo Bridge I remembered how once at York I had come into the college library late at night and seen Mary sitting on Lewis's lap. I did not think they had ever gone out together, but a certain tenderness between them might explain her vehemence. I was sure that Lewis was spending today with Mary's friend of a friend.
During the next few weeks scarcely an hour passed without my mind swinging towards the idea of confronting Lewis with Mary's comments, and then swinging away again. When we did talk, either face to face or on the telephone, I subjected even the most innocuous of his remarks to scrutiny, and whenever he was late, or made excuses not to meet, or explained too fully what he had done the night before, I suspected the worst. He submitted to my cross-examination with a curious meekness which probably signalled that he was about to break off with me.
In the midst of these difficulties I had lunch with a former director of Fredericks. She was shocked to learn that I had still not been promoted to senior editor, and by the end of the meal she had persuaded me to apply for a job with a firm in Edinburgh. Once the letter was written and posted I did not give the matter much thought and I was taken aback to answer the telephone a fortnight later and hear a woman introduce herself as the secretary to the director of Murray and Stern. In a soft Scottish accent, she asked if I was free to come for an interview with Mr. Murray at ten o'clock tomorrow. I hesitated, and she began to apologise. “Mr. Murray's down in London for a couple of days to talk to various educational authorities. He knows it's short notice, but he was hoping that he might be able to see you at the
same time.” I found myself saying that I was sure I could manage.
“Super,” she said. “Let me give you the address of his hotel.”
The following day was unusually warm. Even early in the morning, as I walked the short distance from Victoria Station to the hotel, the petunias in the window boxes were already wilting. I had not mentioned the interview to anyone. I had asked for the day off from work, pleading various errands, and Lewis, with whom I had gone to see a film the night before, had not been in the sort of mood that inspired confidences. Perhaps the secrecy served me in good stead, for it made the prospect seem less real, and not until I entered the lobby of the hotel was I aware of being nervous.
As I approached the reception desk a voice from behind me said, “Miss Gilchrist?” I turned to find myself facing a tall, red-faced man. “Call me Bill,” he said, and shook my hand. He led the way to a group of armchairs in one corner of the lobby, and we sat down on opposite sides of a coffee table. “We just got back from the south of France, where, like an idiot, I fell asleep on the beach,” he said, gesturing towards his visage.
A waiter came by offering morning coffee, and we each ordered a cup. Bill asked me about my current projects. I described the new series of Victorian novels on which I was working. “The rationale for the series is to introduce students not only to the text but to a wide range of critical approaches. I'm editing
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
at the moment, and we're including examples of feminist, Marxist, and Freudian criticism as well as more traditional discussions.”
“I saw the
Jane Eyre
that came out this spring,” Bill said. “It's a handsome book and very nicely organised. We're hoping to do something similar, specifically with Scottish novels.” We began to discuss possible projects for development. Bill put his briefcase on his knees and used it as a desk,
jotting things down in a small spiral notebook. When he looked at his watch and announced that he would have to leave shortly, I was surprised to discover that we had been talking for an hour and a half.
“Have you ever been to Edinburgh?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“It's the most beautiful city in Europe. My wife and I moved there from Leamington Spa four years ago, and we've never regretted it.” As he listed the attractions of Edinburgh, I suddenly realised that he must be planning to offer me the job. The idea was so startling that I had to struggle not to burst out laughing.
He smiled at me. “Of course you have projects to finish up, but from our point of view, the sooner you can start the better. You're exactly what we've been looking for, and I know you're going to be a tremendous asset. I'll get a letter off to you first thing next week, spelling out the p's and q's. If there's anything you don't like, give me a ring, and we'll do our best to fix it.”
We stood up and shook hands as if sealing a contract. Bill headed off towards the stairs, while I ducked into the ladies'. I stood in front of one of the basins, holding my hands under the cold tap, and thought, an asset, a tremendous asset. The laughter, which a few minutes earlier I had managed to contain, spilled forth. “Well, somebody's happy,” the woman at the next basin remarked.
At Victoria Station, I stopped to telephone Lynne. I said I had taken the day off, and she at once invited me for lunch. All the way to her house, I was smiling so broadly that strangers were noticing and smiling back. Three different groups of tourists asked me for directions, and I replied with painstaking thoroughness, even venturing into French on one occasion. When Lynne opened the door, she said, “You won the premium bonds.”
“Not exactly.”
“You're certainly dressed as if you had.” She gave my interview suit an approving pat.
I followed her upstairs. I had mentioned the job to her in passing, and she had applauded my decision to apply. “Maybe it'll help you to get more money at Fredericks,” she had said. Now while she moved around the kitchen getting out plates, cutlery, food, I told her about the interview.
“I'd have much more input into the books at every level,” I said.
“You mean you could acquire books?”
“Yes, and, even better, commission them.”
“It sounds like you've got the job.” Lynne was standing at the counter, slicing bread for sandwiches. I could not see her face, but her tone was as even as the steady sawing of the knife across the loaf.
“I doubt it,” I said. “Probably he was just being polite. When he gets back to Edinburgh he'll have his secretary write a letter, explaining that I don't have the right qualifications, or offering a minuscule salary. But it was exciting to be able to discuss my ideas with such a responsive audience.” I smiled at her, wanting to coax her out of her mood of sombre realism.
“I think they'll offer you a huge salary, and the letter will be all about how much they want you.” She brought the bread to the table and sat down facing me. “I'm going to miss you so much.”
“I would miss you too, but they're not going to offer it to me, and even if they did I wouldn't accept. I'd only go to Edinburgh if you'd come too.”
I wanted to keep talking about the interview, to mention all the bits and pieces of praise Bill had given me, but in the face of Lynne's reaction, I could not do so with abandon.
Instead I began to describe the film I had seen with Lewis the night before. I was glad when lunch was over and it was time to collect Eve from nursery school.
 
I did not tell Lewis about the interview until the letter came, warmly phrased, offering a substantial increase in salary. Then I telephoned his office, thinking I could at least leave a message, but for once he answered. His secretary was on holiday, he explained. I told him my news and he said, “That's wonderful, Celia. Can I take you out to celebrate? Are you free this evening?”
He sounded more enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing me than he had for months, and we arranged to meet at an Italian restaurant in Soho. I spent the remainder of the day busily at work in the city of my imagination; I erected substantial buildings with a speed that any contractor might envy. By the time I arrived at the Trattoria, I was convinced that Lewis would react with dismay, that he would save me from going to Edinburgh and from everything else.
He was already seated at a corner table. As I approached he stood up and came to meet me. “Congratulations,” he said, kissing me on both cheeks.
We sat down and a waiter, so thin as to be almost cadaverous, brought over an ice bucket. After a brief struggle he relinquished the champagne to Lewis, who uncorked and poured it with a flourish. “Here's to you,” he said, raising his glass.
Lewis was looking unusually handsome. He was wearing a dark blue shirt which deepened the colour of his eyes, and in the soft light of the restaurant his pale skin shone. Throughout dinner he questioned me assiduously. He had soon winkled out of me all the advantages of this new position. “It sounds wonderful,” he said. “I'll have to come and visit you. I've always wanted to see Edinburgh.” He polished off the last of his veal and pushed his plate to one side.
“Are you finished?” asked the waiter, looking at the heap of fettuccine on my plate. I nodded, and with an air of disapproval he cleared the table. “So you think I should take the job,” I said.
“From everything you've told me, it would be mad not to. It's a small company, you'll have much more input, and you'll be virtually your own boss. I've heard you complain dozens of times that working at Fredericks is a dead-end job, that there's absolutely no possibility of promotion.” He emptied the remainder of the champagne into our glasses.
“But I don't want to leave London,” I said. “Especially to go to Scotland. If it was Oxford, or even Bristol, that would be different, but Edinburgh is like the end of the world.”
He put his hand over mine. “It's not that far, Celia. You can fly up in an hour. Besides, you're not talking about going forever, only for a couple of years, and then you can come back to London in all your glory and get a fantastic job. I remember before I went to Hong Kong, I felt like I was going to Botany Bay, but once I actually arrived it was fine, and I could never have got my present job without the experience I gained there.”
“But,” I said, forcing out the words, “I don't want to leave my friends.”
“Your friends don't want you to leave,” Lewis said. He squeezed my hand and smiled. “We'll all visit you, and you'll visit us, and it won't be for long. I'm delighted for you. Do you want coffee? Dessert?”
Unable to speak, I shook my head. Lewis beckoned the waiter, and I excused myself. In the small pink cubicle of the ladies' toilet I admonished myself not to cry. The broad avenues and lofty buildings of my imaginary city lay in ruins, and the tears I struggled to hold back stemmed as much from fury at my own stupidity as from grief. Even to me, it was abundantly plain that Lewis had not the slightest notion that our relationship could possibly constitute a reason for my
staying. I washed my hands and, in the absence of a towel, wiped them on my skirt.
 
Every aspect of moving to Edinburgh was made easy. In August, Bill's assistant telephoned to tell me that the sales manager was going to do a training course in Glasgow for a year and hoped to sublet his flat. I reached Malcolm at the first attempt, and in twenty minutes we had made the necessary arrangements. A week later the old-fashioned, heavy keys thudded through my letter box. With equal ease I sublet my flat to a friend of Gillian's who was coming to London for a year to do an M.A. at King's College. These arrangements made my impending exile more bearable, for they reminded everyone that I was only going away for a year, a claim that was further supported by the managing editor of Fredericks, who assured me I could have my old job back anytime.
No sooner had I arrived in Edinburgh, however, than my effortless progress ceased; it was as if I had coasted to the bottom of a steep hill, and the route ahead lay sharply upwards. When the train pulled into Waverley Station, it was raining hard, and the queue for taxis wound down the pavement and round the corner. As I shuffled forward with my suitcases I surveyed the station. At ground level a barrage of garish signs offered refreshment, but above the first storey the trappings of the twentieth century fell away. The upper part of the huge structure was grimly Victorian. Rain fell relentlessly on the glass roof. In his travelling cage, Tobias uttered piteous cries.
Half an hour passed before it was my turn to climb into a cab, which at least had the virtue of looking like a London taxi. I gave the driver Malcolm's address and settled back into my seat. We came out of the station, opposite what I guessed to be Princes Street Gardens, and turned in the direction of a forbidding mass of black buildings which stretched up the
hillside towards the Castle. The pavements were thronged with pedestrians carrying umbrellas. Only a few hours earlier, I had left London in brilliant sunshine.
The expediency of departure had created a kind of excitement which had carried me through the day so far; now as the moment of arrival approached, I wished, in spite of the meter's swift clicks, that it could be indefinitely postponed. After barely ten minutes, however, the driver slowed down. “It was number sixteen you wanted?” he asked. I agreed, and we pulled up at the curb.
I unloaded Tobias and my suitcases into the rain, and the taxi drove away. I stood looking up at the building. Number sixteen was part of a terrace of houses built of dark red sandstone. There was something dourly respectable about the facade that brought to mind all the unpleasant rumours I had heard about Scottish Calvinism. It was inconceivable that I was going to live here. Only for a year, I told myself, and picked up the cage and a suitcase.
The front door opened into a short corridor that lead to a flight of stairs. The floor was stone, and the walls were painted in two colours, the bottom half maroon, the top pink. One by one I carried my bags up to the fourth floor. Not until I had everything on the landing, did I put the key in the lock and push open the door.

Other books

The Green Bicycle by Haifaa Al Mansour
The Tenant by Sotia Lazu
Look at the Harlequins! by Vladimir Nabokov
Crawl by Edward Lorn
Spawn of Man by Terry Farricker
Crystals by Henry, Theresa L.
Confederate Gold and Silver by Peter F. Warren
Dark Mist Rising by Anna Kendall