Past (18 page)

Grantham disdained this with a little moue of irritation. — I base any number of my sermons on poetry, with no expectation of anybody noticing.

Carefully, Sophy ate a cold mouthful of cabbage. She loved poems but easily forgot them, and she only half-listened to her husband's sermons anyway. This wasn't exactly because she wasn't interested. But part of the oddity of marriage, she thought, was in how unwise it was to attend too intently to the other person. This was the opposite to what she had naively imagined, as a girl. To the unmarried, it seemed that a couple must be intimately, perpetually exposed to each other – but actually, that wasn't bearable. In order for love to survive, you had to close yourself off to a certain extent.

The card had gone from the window of the wool shop when Jill was next in town, and when she went inside, the manageress – bustling and bland with thick lipstick, her spectacles inset with little chips of cut glass – hastened up to explain herself. It was obvious that Jill's interest in the job had caused some consternation, and that a pale new girl, with nervous rabbit eyes, had been manoeuvred into place behind the till, to forestall the embarrassment of having to turn Jill down.

— We'll keep you on our books, the manageress reassured her insincerely. — In case anything else comes up.

The idea of spending more than a few minutes in the airless, hot little shop, packed tight with wool-balls, was suddenly a nightmare – how could Jill have imagined it would work? These shops weren't like the shops in London, with a perpetual flow of customers coming and going. She would have died, if she'd been stuck in here with someone like this rabbit-girl for days on end, forced to make conversation, helping old women choose patterns for twinsets and car-coats. Yet she couldn't help feeling a twinge of humiliation, because they hadn't wanted her. — Don't worry, she said with breezy charm, knowing she wouldn't be forgiven for it. — I noticed it because I was looking around for something for a few hours a week. But it's not really the kind of thing I'm used to.

The estate agents would be more suitable, she thought; with her intelligence she would surely be able to pick up the work quickly. She wondered if they needed anyone. As she pushed the door open, a woman looked up from where she was bent over the Gestetner copier, churning out details of properties. Mikey Waller came out of the back office when he heard Jill's voice. — It's all right, Rose, he said. — I'll deal with Mrs Crane.

Jill had the impression that Mikey was pleased she'd called in. He offered her coffee: in one corner of his office he kept an electric kettle, with a jar of Nescafé and mugs on a tray. She imagined suggesting that they went across the road to The Bungalow – but perhaps she should tread carefully, not knowing whether he was married. He set about spooning the Nescafé into two mugs, stirring it to a paste with the dried milk. It still seemed wrong to Jill, finding him confined to this office whose partitions were so flimsily provisional. She could remember when the place was an enchanting chemist's shop: they must have ripped out all the old mirror glass, and the drawers and shelves of polished mahogany. Mikey was too substantial to fit in here, he ought to have gone into some career better suited to his bulky physique and clever, careful hands. The way he concentrated, stirring two spoons of sugar into his cup, reminded her that at school he was always the one the teacher counted on to be sensible, to collect up the litter at the end of sports day or clean the blackboards during playtime. She and he had both been prefects, in the last year of juniors. It must be awful for him having to sell things, show people round depressing houses and talk them into buying. Perhaps he would call in and see her, once she'd found a place to rent. When she enquired about the Goods' cottage, he was incredulous.

— You mean that old place in Cutcombe woods? You couldn't live there. It isn't suitable.

— Why not? The Goods lived there for years. Isn't there still water in the well?

— In the well? He laughed at her. — Nobody gets their water from a well any longer. Not to mention that there's no bathroom or toilet, no electricity – and no access by road.

She hadn't properly thought about the toilet, and had no idea how you dealt with an earth closet, or whatever arrangement the cottage had. Probably Mikey would know how. — People manage without those things.

— Well, maybe you could manage it, he said. — You always were a bit different.

He was taking her seriously, observing her very closely. Mikey wasn't good looking. His sandy hair was limp and his eyelids were freckled, with short fair lashes; he moved his shoulders stiffly, turning his whole torso at once. But Jill thought now that she had always liked his unselfconscious calm, as if he were holding something back. — They probably had an old copper for hot water, he said. — No shortage of firewood. It would certainly be peaceful. I haven't been past it for a while. I suppose I can see you living like that, if you really didn't mind those inconveniences.

For some reason Jill felt ashamed then, as though she'd been showing off. It was the kind of thing her London friends went on about: starting new lives in the countryside, getting closer to nature, doing without modern technologies. Usually she was the one who debunked their fantasies, saying they had no idea what hard labour it was, getting a living out of the earth – and that the countryside wasn't an empty place you could just drop into, like a garden of Eden. Real people lived in it, who mostly took a dim view of outsiders. Now here she was pretending to be a gypsy like any romantic. Mikey promised he would find out who owned the cottage – he thought it was probably tied to one of the big estates, and didn't suppose the Goods had been paying a king's ransom. The place would most likely be left to fall down, if no one wanted it. Jill told him then about trying to get a job in the wool shop. — I wasn't good enough, they wouldn't have me.

— In the wool shop? He was incredulous. — Aren't you a bit overqualified for that?

— There isn't much call for classicists down here. Actually, there isn't much call for them anywhere. And I need the money.

— I forgot you did classics, he said. — You were the clever one.

— You solved all the arithmetic problems at junior school.

He liked remembering that. — Filling up a tank, so many gallons, such a cubic capacity, how long would it take, that sort of thing. Yes, I enjoyed those.

She saw that Mikey was curious, wondering why she needed money if she had a husband who wrote for the newspapers. Because of her enquiries about the cottage, he must have half an idea that she was up to something, digging her way out of some disaster. Perhaps she could explain herself to him sometime. She would like someone else in the world to know what she was planning and what she felt, and what Tom was – what he really was, once and for all, which nobody saw apart from her. Though that was nonsense of course. People weren't ‘really' anything, there wasn't ever any final, definitive version. For a moment she hoped Mikey would say that if she was looking for a job, they needed help with their filing right here in the office. Instead he asked how many children she had. He might have been worrying about the cottage and the earth closet, reminding her of realities and of her responsibilities. Was he reproaching her? You never knew with men, what ideas they got into their heads about how mothers ought to behave.

— Two girls and a boy. The oldest is seven, the baby's eighteen months.

— That sounds like quite a handful.

— Mum's looking after them this afternoon. I can't tell you what a treat this is, just sitting here talking, drinking coffee, not having to worry about anyone behaving badly, or falling over, or needing their nappy changing. What about you? Do you have children?

— Haven't been nabbed yet, he said heartily, rubbing his finger round the rim of his coffee mug as if he was trying to make it ring. — Don't know one end of a baby from the other. I was engaged once, but it didn't work out. Still footloose and fancy-free.

The words sounded as if Mikey had overheard someone else using them: they didn't suit him. It was ridiculous to think of him as footloose, he was too shambling and heavy. They were both embarrassed, and Jill began explaining the kind of properties she was interested in – not the modern houses that were like anonymous little boxes. And not anything in town: she'd rather live out in the country. She might learn to drive, and anyway didn't mind using the buses. — I'd have thought you were the marrying kind, she said while he looked for more property details in a filing cabinet. — The kind women are drawn to.

— Well, they haven't been queuing up lately, he said, searching through papers with a frown. — Here we are. See what you think of these two places. At least these have running water, though they're not exactly all mod cons. I could take you round to have a look, if you were interested. One afternoon later in the week? Or next week?

Jill wondered about Rose in the outer office – she was middle-aged, with a stiff blonde perm, but anything could happen if a man and a woman spent every day together. Then she was afraid that Mikey might be affronted, by her having claimed so high-handedly to know him – or perhaps by her remark about the little boxes. She must sound like a ghastly snob, despising those: most people were grateful to have a roof over their heads, and indoor bathrooms. Beneath his show of being blunt and uncomplicated, she suspected that Mikey was all delicate perception and quick judgement.

Sophy told Jill, who was sorting out laundry, that she was going to drop in at Roddings. The children were playing in the garden – Hettie was in charge, making sure no one fell in the river. Eve Smith was doing the church flowers that week, Sophy said, and wanted lilac for her colour scheme. All this was the truth, and before she went she picked an armful of the plumy lilac that grew beside the rectory's front gate. But when she'd handed the lilac over to Eve, and Eve was filling a sink for it in the Roddings back scullery, Sophy also asked if she could use the telephone. Eve had a pink, round, patient face and lank, greying dark hair, forever falling in her eyes; she looked washed out, with all the work of a farm and three grown bullying sons all living at home. She told Sophy to go ahead and help herself, pushing her hair back with a broad mottled arm because her hands were wet. Sophy had brought half a crown with her, to leave discreetly beside the phone as payment, always anxious that it might not be enough, or be too much. You could never forget you were the vicar's wife, with all that brought in the way of wariness in the country women, and a submerged hostility.

The Smiths had their telephone in the farm office, which was off the passage to the yard, a watershed between indoor and outdoor worlds: farm machinery and veterinary equipment were jumbled with boots and socks and waterproofs, an old clock ticked on the mantel above the huge cold fireplace, packets of shotgun cartridges were spilled amongst the paperwork on the desk. Parts of Roddings went back to the fourteenth century, Grantham said; the beams in the low ceiling were twelve inches thick. If John Smith or any of the boys had been at work in the office, Sophy would have abandoned her call: she didn't mind John, but could never have explained to him what she was up to. First she dialled the number for the flat in Marylebone, though she hardly expected anyone to answer, and no one did.

Then, fishing out a scrap of paper from her coat pocket, she tried another number, the one which Tom had left for Jill last week. Sophy had copied it before she gave the note to her daughter – partly out of her usual anxiety over losing things, partly because she was thinking that she might want to contact Tom herself, without letting Jill know. She didn't have much hope of getting hold of him, but it was worth a try. Obviously the two young ones had quarrelled. Sophy dreaded being the kind of mother who insisted on explanations, but she had got it into her head that it was her duty to encourage Tom, and tell him not to be deterred by Jill's intransigence. Her daughter was capable of putting up such a shining, off-putting show of certainty; Jill believed that each time she changed, it was for the last time. She insisted that she hadn't spoken to Tom the other night, though she had taken the handful of coins which Sophy put out for her. Left to himself, Tom might not persevere. He made such a point of being fearless, shocking people with his hair and his jokes and opinions; but Sophy didn't trust him not to give up at the first obstacle. She saw the strain in his eyes sometimes, as if his bravado was hard work.

A woman answered the phone: her voice was breathless as if she'd broken off in the middle of something funny. Sophy asked if she could speak to Mr Crane. There was a hesitation, then the woman proceeded more cautiously, though with something flaunting in her voice, as if her laughter might start up again at any moment. — Who is this speaking, please?

She couldn't possibly say she was his mother-in-law. — It's Sophy.

— Sophy, I'm afraid Mr Crane isn't here.

The woman's voice sounded as if she were putting on a parody of a secretary's clipped professionalism for someone else's benefit, to amuse them. — He's in an important meeting. Terribly important. I don't have any idea when he'll be back. Do you know, Bernie?

Sophy heard a man's voice – it didn't sound like Tom – in the background.

— Bernie doesn't have any idea either. Shall I ask Mr Crane to call you back?

Sophy said she would try again another time. It was strange to put down the phone and look around the unchanged walls of the Roddings office, coloured a deep yellow-brown by the men's tobacco smoke over the years. Her conversation lingered in there, a frivolous rainbow vapour from another world, a younger one. Should she feel anxious, because a woman had answered the phone? Definitely it hadn't been Tom's voice in the background. Probably they were just a couple, friends of his. But disturbing possibilities swam in her imagination, uninvited: just because they were a couple, that didn't preclude other arrangements with her son-in-law, experimental combinations. She found herself wondering, alarmed by her own inventiveness, whether the woman hadn't answered the phone half-naked, propped on her elbows amid rumpled sheets, in the middle of the day. It was extraordinary how much you knew about people, even from such a short exchange. These friends of Tom's weren't straightforward, they weren't serious, they had laughed at her. Sophy felt caught out, as if she belonged to ancient, earnest history.