Out of Step (9 page)

‘Oh,’ Sibyl said at work, ‘I do so
love
enthusiasm! I can’t be doing with people who are never sad and never happy, but always drearily impassive. Emotions are for showing, not suppressing.’

‘And for sharing,’ Nell agreed, ‘or displaying if you’re an actress, I suppose. Maybe that’s where Elly gets it from?’

‘Mmm,’ Sibyl said. ‘That probably is my fault, yes,’ and she looked at Nell sideways, smiling. ‘They’re talking of having a boat-warming party soon and inviting Hat, Paul’s mother, and you too, of course, plus anyone you’d like to bring?’ She looked quizzical.

‘If you mean Rob Hayhoe,’ Nell said, ‘you’re on the wrong track altogether. I’m hoping to buy his house, not go out with him.’

‘I see.’ Sibyl was unconvinced. ‘Have you made an offer for it?’

‘Yes, just. And I’ve arranged to go down to see it again this evening to do some measurements. I’m going to have to get rid of a lot of my parents’ furniture, and I need to find out what will and what won’t go in.’

‘One collects so much rubbish over a lifetime,’ Sibyl agreed.

‘Not any longer, for me,’ Nell said. ‘I’ve decided to go minimalist.’

‘Oh. I like the William Morris philosophy myself:
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’

Nell, thinking of Sibyl’s cluttered house, caught her eye and snorted rudely.

‘Well,’ Sibyl said, mock defensive, ‘I can’t help it if I find so much of life beautiful, can I?’

Nell thought of Sibyl later that day when she arrived at Rob’s cottage at sunset. The western sky was magnificent, and she paused at the vantage point to gaze across the river at the distant headland and the tower of the folly redly illuminated against the flat black sea. When she arrived at the bottom, she found Rob out in his garden looking at the same sky.

‘Isn’t it marvellous?’ she called, getting out of her car.

‘Certainly is.’ She went to join him, and they leant on the back wall and looked across the river in the failing light.

‘Still pretty cold though,’ Nell said, after a few moments.

‘Warm enough inside,’ Rob replied, ushering her into the cottage through the back door. As she went in past him, she stubbed her toe on something and stumbled, clutching at the doorframe for support, and looking down to see what had tripped her.

‘A
sandbag?’
she said in an exaggeratedly quavering old woman’s voice, to cover a sudden attack of shyness.

‘Oh,’ Rob said at once, ‘do come in, Lady Bracknell!’

They smiled at each other in mutual understanding. Nell felt entirely comfortable all at once, but then suddenly annoyed about being charmed in spite of herself.

‘Would you like a beer?’ he said.

‘I think I’d rather have a coffee.’

‘Easy.’ He slid the kettle over onto the hotplate and it began to sing straightaway. ‘I’d much rather you bought this place than that man,’ Rob said. ‘I’d hate it to be in the wrong hands.’

‘How long have you lived here?’

‘Let me see … I bought it when I was twenty-five, and I’m thirty-five now, so, ten years.’

‘Before you were married?’

‘Heavens, yes. Three years before. Remind me, do you take sugar?’

‘No, thanks. And have there been many floods?’

‘Only one bad one. It’s not often that heavy rain, a spring tide and a storm surge all coincide, but I take precautions every winter anyway, as you discovered.’ He smiled at her. ‘Just as well you don’t
look
like Dame Edith Evans!’ he said, pushing a mug of coffee towards her.

Nell laughed. ‘So, where will you go when you leave?’

‘That’s a tricky one. I may be reduced to living in a caravan. I’ve been looking round but so far I haven’t found a house or flat to rent where I can have the children to stay at weekends. It looks as though I shall have to go back to working in the firm’s Boxcombe office too, which will be a pain – definitely a retrograde step. I’ll probably have to share one of their poky little offices, so it will be unpopular all round.’

‘That’s a shame. Have you found a suitable caravan?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Because I know someone who may be knowledgeable about where to look,’ Nell said, thinking of Anna. ‘I could ask her.’

‘You mean your actress friend?’

‘Oh, Elly would love to hear you say that! No, not her, although that reminds me,’ Nell said, suddenly abandoning caution, ‘They’ve just bought the best houseboat in Eely Creek, and they’re having a boat-warming party at the end of the month. Would you like to come?’

‘Oh … well… what date?’ Rob got a calendar off the wall and studied it. ‘Oh damn, Bert will be here then. He’s paying me a final state visit, before I have to move out.’

‘So bring him too. Elly would be in heaven!’

‘Well… it’s a thought. He loves parties, and I’m always at a loss as to how to entertain him, but –’

‘Great,’ Nell said. ‘That’s settled then.’ She got a steel tape out of her pocket. ‘Now, perhaps I should measure a
few things.’ My dresser will go here, she thought, and my big table over there. My favourite blue curtains might even fit too…

When she got home, she phoned Elly with the news.

‘Oh my God!’ Elly shouted, ‘Malachy Hayhoe? You’re not serious? I don’t believe it! What on earth shall I wear? I’ve
got
to impress him!’ Then she changed tack abruptly. ‘Don’t tell Paul, OK?’ she begged. ‘Let it be a surprise or I won’t get a look in. I can’t have him hogging the man. You do see that? I’ll need time to work on him alone. Nell, you are a genius! I’m for ever in your debt.’

‘Steady on!’ Nell said. ‘Try to get this into some sort of perspective, will you? You’ll be lucky to be alone with anyone in that confined space, and, anyway, the bunks are a little narrow to be used as casting couches, aren’t they?’

‘Huh!’ Elly exclaimed bitterly. ‘In my dreams!’

The tide was out when the party began, and the house-boat was firmly supported on its viscous bed of mud. Like a strip of candied angelica on chocolate mousse, Nell thought, remembering how it had looked in daylight the last time she’d seen it. This is a dangerous place in which to get too drunk, she thought, as she stood on the unlit deck getting some air. One slip and I’d be sucked under in no time – I’d rather drown in water … She caught herself up; this was supposed to be a party! It was a bit cold. She’d better go back inside.

‘Nell?’ Rob said, emerging from the companionway and standing in a shaft of light from below. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing. It was a bit stuffy below. I think Paul’s overdone the stove stoking, and the cigar smoke doesn’t help. How’s it going down there?’

‘OK, I think.’

‘Does your father know about Elly’s ambitions? I don’t think she’s had the chance to talk to him properly yet.’

‘It’s all right. I briefed him on the way here, but I doubt whether he’ll be much use. In fact it might be wise if you discouraged her.’

‘Oh? Why?’

‘It just might.’

Nell felt snubbed. ‘Are Elly and Paul being polite to each other?’ she asked, to keep the conversation going.

‘So so.’ Rob put out a hand, palm downwards, and inclined it from side to side. ‘Who’s the energetic woman
again, with the short grey hair, talking to Bert? They seem to be getting on famously.’

‘That’s Paul’s mother, Harriet, usually known as Hat.’

‘So the boys are her grandsons – what age, about seven and five?’

‘I think so, yes. She looks after them quite a lot in London, I think, while Elly and Paul are working. Your father’s great at entertaining children, isn’t he? Somehow I hadn’t imagined he would be.’

‘Mmm,’ was all Rob said.

‘He’s very good-looking,’ Nell said, still making an effort.

‘Isn’t he just?’

She gave up. ‘I’m going back down. It’s cold.’

‘I won’t be long either,’ Rob said, feeling his way past her towards the darkened prow. ‘Only came up for a leak.’

‘Oh.’ Nell turned away, but heard his stream of urine hit the mud below, and thought of an old witticism of her grandmother’s –
What a handy gadget to take on a picnic!
– but felt too put out to share it.

In the long cabin below, the party sounded cheerful enough. ‘Nice bloke, Rob,’ Paul said, passing her on his way on deck, presumably for the same purpose. He patted her arm encouragingly. ‘You could do worse.’

I’m doing a
lot
worse! Nell thought. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. I wish I hadn’t invited him now.

At the bottom of the stairs she looked about her. The atmosphere was smoky but convivial. Paul had always been generous with drinks, and the plates of open sandwiches, sausage rolls and mini quiches were being emptied with enthusiasm. No one had bothered to draw the curtains, and the windows were all steamed up as the warm breath from many conversations nudged the cold glass and clung there, in tiny beads of moisture. The brass
fittings gleamed in the purposely subdued lighting, and in places the red velvet cushions had all but disappeared under the relaxed spread of the partygoers. Everyone had moved away from the heat of the central black stove as if polarised. Hat, Rob’s father and the two children had ended up at the sharp end, with the rest of the party nearer the stern by the companionway. Nell could see that Elly wasn’t too pleased about this, and knew that sooner or later she would take action.

‘All right, Nell?’ Sibyl asked her. ‘Come and sit here for a bit.’ She patted the bunk beside her, and Nell sat down obediently. At the far end, where the pull-down table was, Hat and Malachy Hayhoe were playing I Spy with Will and Sam. Both boys looked creased up with tiredness, but had objected vigorously to any suggestion that they should be put to bed in the fore cabin like babies.

‘… something beginning with A,’ Rob’s father was saying (Nell found it difficult to think of him as Bert). He blew a few smoke-rings from a fat cigar and twinkled at his audience. Sam, the younger boy, was resting his cheek on the table, and sweeping an arm back and forth across its polished surface in a bid for inspiration. ‘Apple,’ he mumbled.

‘There aren’t any apples in here,’ Will said scornfully, putting up a finger to trap a smoke-ring as it drifted past.

‘There might be!’

‘It has to be something in sight, Sam,’ Hat reminded him. ‘I mean, if there was an anaconda in that drawer over there, it wouldn’t count.’

‘What’s a nanna …?’

Nell turned to Sibyl. ‘It’s very good of him to play games,’ she said. ‘I’d rather assumed he’d be busy holding court; being famous.’

‘Yes,’ Sibyl said, but without much conviction, glancing across at the silent Elly.

Nell turned back to hear Bert saying, ‘An anaconda can
swallow a manhole, or do I mean a man whole?’

She leant across to Elly. ‘Will and Sam seem to be having a fun time.’ She knew Elly was always drawn to people who were nice to children.

‘Lovely,’ Elly agreed, but she looked unhappy. Sibyl was looking a bit tight-lipped too. Nell frowned.

‘Arm?’ Hat suggested, guessing the I Spy. ‘Or ankle?’ Bert shook his head, but his luxuriant silver hair stayed perfectly in place.

‘Abdomen?’ Paul said, coming down again with Rob, and patting his.

‘Antediluvian?’ Sibyl said, pointing to herself.

‘Anchor?’ Will said. ‘Since this is supposed to be a boat.’

‘There isn’t one!’ Sam retorted.

‘Anorexic?’ Paul said, looking pointedly at Elly.

‘Autocrat!’ she flashed back.

Paul was not to be outdone. ‘April fool?’

‘It’s still March,’ Will protested, ‘and anyway it’s our game, not y –’

‘Aphrodisiac?’ Elly suggested. Her voice seemed to have gone down an octave. She looked very deliberately down the length of the boat and caught Bert’s eye.

‘Antipathy?’ Paul said at once.

‘Rubbish!’ Hat said briskly. ‘You can’t
see
antipathy.’

Sibyl caught Nell’s eye, and looked away quickly again.

‘Accountant?’ Nell said hastily, after an uncomfortable silence.

‘Warm,’ Bert said, looking at her properly for the first time.

‘Artist?’ Sibyl suggested, touching Nell’s arm.

‘Warm again. Do you give up?’ He looked smug. ‘What about you, Rob? You haven’t done one.’

‘Just tell them, OK?’ Rob said shortly.

‘It’s an almost actress,’ Bert pronounced grandly, giving
Elly a long look which fizzed down the boat like a laser.

Nell thought, What’s going on? What
is
he playing at? And why is Rob so angry? Some party! She leant against the back of the bunk with her hands behind the cushion, and fiddled with the piping along its edge.

‘Nice place, this,’ Rob said to Paul, turning his back on his father. ‘I don’t suppose you know whether any of the other houseboats are for rent?’

‘I doubt it very much,’ Paul said. ‘I have a feeling they’re all reserved for holiday letting.’

That’s a bit unfriendly, Nell thought. He said he liked Rob! He might at least have agreed to ask around. But it was nothing to do with her, so she kept quiet. She wondered why Rob had accepted this invitation in the first place. He’d barely spoken to her all evening, and he clearly didn’t consider himself to be ‘with’ her. It was almost as though he had turned into another person altogether: an impersonal self-effacing presence, drained of all initiative. Was this his father’s influence?

Nell wondered about Bert. Had he been tantalising Elly by deliberately ignoring her whilst monopolising the only two people she couldn’t possibly object to? If Rob had really told him about her beforehand, then Bert
must
have known she’d be keen to talk to him. Was this perhaps what all public figures did to keep their fans at a distance, or was Bert being deliberately provocative, even malicious; indulging in a kind of power play? And was Rob’s awareness of this the reason for his mood? If so, she supposed she could hardly blame him.

Elly, Sibyl and Paul were now talking about holidays, and Rob was listening. Elly seemed more animated now. Nell was glad of this, and happy to take a back seat. She felt confused.

‘… Anything for a quiet life!’ Paul was saying jovially.

Nell’s fingers encountered something hard under the cushion, and she brought it out to examine. It was a pearl
earstud in a zigzag gold setting, and it looked surprisingly familiar. She turned it over and over in her hand. Of course! It was exactly like one of the ones Anna always wore. She was about to say, ‘Look what I’ve found!’, but the other four were deep in conversation. A verbal coincidence niggled at her from a closed room within her brain. Then the cell door opened a crack, and she remembered Anna saying:
The Boss likes a quiet life
, and she looked across at Paul, frowning … No, in all probability the earring belonged to one of the former owners of the houseboat – yes, that must be it. But she slipped it unseen into her pocket anyway, just in case.