The Tennis Party (18 page)

‘We couldn’t let you,’ said Stephen eventually.

‘Rubbish,’ said Caroline briskly. ‘We’ve only got Georgina to pay for. We might easily have six sets of school fees to fork out every year. One extra won’t make any difference. And it makes us mad to see Nicola’s talents wasted at that school. She needs a better chance in life. Patrick thinks’, she added, ‘that
Nicola should have riding lessons.’ Patrick’s head jerked in amazement. ‘He thinks St Catherine’s would do wonders for her confidence,’ she added blithely. ‘Didn’t you say that, Patrick?’

Patrick glared at her. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Wonders.’ He turned to pour himself another brandy and caught the eye of Ella. She grinned at him, as if she knew exactly what was going through his mind.

‘I think it’s a lovely gesture,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Nicola would benefit from private education. It’s very generous of you.’

‘Very,’ said Charles sardonically. ‘Six years of boarding-school doesn’t exactly come cheap.’

‘Well, of course, we’d pay as soon as we could,’ said Annie eagerly. ‘We’d think of it as a loan.’ She gave Patrick a wide smile. ‘All my instincts and manners tell me we must refuse your offer; but when I think of Nicola, of how much it would mean to her . . . I don’t think I can bring myself to.’ Her eyes began to moisten. ‘Look at me!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m pathetic!’

‘I don’t know.’ Stephen was still frowning. ‘As Charles says, it is a lot of money.’

‘It’s all relative,’ said Caroline. She flashed a wicked look at Patrick. ‘I mean,’ she said deliberately, ‘think how much money Patrick deals in every day. What’s a few years’ school fees compared to that?’ Watching in impotent fury, Patrick saw this idea taking root in
Stephen’s mind. Christ, Stephen was so fucking naïve. After today’s performance in the study, he probably thought Patrick dealt in sums of eighty thousand every minute. And Caroline knew it.

Stephen raised doubtful eyes to Patrick, and Patrick forced himself to smile.

‘Caroline’s right,’ he said, hardly able to believe he was saying it. ‘We can easily afford it.’ If we forget any idea of new cars, let alone a new house, he thought. And Caroline can fucking well get rid of her Barbados brochures.

‘Good,’ said Caroline. ‘That’s settled. I’m so pleased. We both are, aren’t we, sweetheart?’

‘Delighted,’ said Patrick, and knocked back another brandy.

Nothing much more was said for a while. Annie, who had drunk more than anyone – including herself – had quite realized, began weeping quiet, unobtrusive tears of gratitude at Caroline’s and Patrick’s offer. Stephen smiled apologetically round the room and put his arm round her; the others sat blankly as if overcome by sudden torpor; staring silently down into their coffee grounds with numbed, drunk, late-night expressions. After a while, Caroline began to yawn rather ostentatiously. Stephen glanced at his watch and began to shift position; Patrick quietly collected the coffee cups and put them back on the tray.

Charles realized, with alarm, that the party was breaking up. Suddenly the idea of tamely going up to bed filled him with horror. After this evening, he felt alive and invigorated. He felt young again. Hearing about Ella’s travels, about her friendship with Maud Vennings, talking about artists, even discussing
Stephen’s mystery play, had suddenly reminded him of what he used to be like. Christ, how his values, his interests, even his idea of a good time had changed since marriage. Or, really, since Cressida. When was the last time he had stayed up all night, or got stoned? When was the last time he had thrown himself headlong into an argument, debating the point for debating’s sake – even if he agreed with his opponent? When was the last time he had spent a whole evening excitedly sketching out some new project for the Print Centre that was doomed to be a commercial failure?

He glanced down at his wrist, expensively cuffed in a Jermyn Street shirt, expensively adorned with a Swiss watch. Of course his life had changed. No-one could expect him to remain a bloody hippy all his life; to live off bread and sex and cheap drugs. And it wasn’t just him. The world had changed. It was Stephen who was the oddity these days, still idealistic; still naïve; still poor. Charles’ thoughts flickered complacently to the house in the Cathedral Close. It had cost a fucking fortune, that house.

His mind paused, and he waited for the customary kick of pleasure that thinking about his new wealth generally brought him. But this time it hadn’t worked. The feeling of excitement in his stomach had nothing to do with his wife and her worldly goods. He imagined
Cressida’s face, waiting for him upstairs; pale, insipid, stupid. Going up to bed was unthinkable.

He glanced at Ella, clutching her knees and gazing dreamily at nothing.

‘I feel like a bit of a walk,’ he said quietly. ‘A breath of fresh air. Want to join me?’ Ella regarded him consideringly.

‘All right,’ she said eventually, and smiled her secretive smile. ‘You can show me the garden. Caroline,’ she said, raising her voice, ‘it’s not too late to go walking in the garden, is it? We won’t get bats in our hair?’

‘Oh no,’ said Caroline, ‘I don’t think so.’ She looked puzzledly at Patrick, swaying very slightly. ‘Bats?’ she repeated. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Patrick, smiling at them over Caroline’s head. ‘Just leave the terrace door open and shut it firmly behind you when you come back.’

‘Well, good night,’ said Charles hurriedly, not wanting to look at their faces.

‘See you all tomorrow,’ said Ella. ‘Sleep well.’

As Ella opened the terrace door, Charles felt a slight quailing. Perhaps it would be better to announce that he had changed his mind; that he was feeling tired; that he thought he would turn in after all. But before he could make up his mind to do this, he was out into the soft, black, anonymous night. He lingered on the terrace, breathing in the night air, looking at the dark
forms of the garden. The fairy lights were still on and he felt as though he were playing a part in some old-fashioned film. Some enchanted evening . . . A tune flickered through his mind.

‘I thought you wanted to walk?’ Ella was already halfway across the lawn.

‘Oh, coming,’ said Charles. As he hurried to join her, someone turned off the fairy lights from inside. The garden was plunged into darkness and Charles paused in his stride.

‘Where are you?’

‘Here.’ Her voice travelled, low and husky, through the night air, and he walked blindly towards it, feeling for bumps in the grass with his feet, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness.

‘Here, silly.’ He had walked past her. He turned back uncertainly and felt a warm hand seize his.

‘You urban creature,’ she mocked. ‘You’ve forgotten how to use your eyes properly.’ At the touch of her hand, a delicious tingle spread from Charles’ neck, up past his ear and over his head. He followed her meekly towards the hedge, through the gate and into the field beyond. As they brushed past the hedge, a bird noisily flapped its way out; further down in the undergrowth there were more animal scufflings.

‘In Africa,’ said Ella, ‘all the animals come together
at night to drink. Even those that don’t normally mix. It’s a wonderful sight.’

‘You went to Africa?’ ventured Charles. He had never discussed Ella’s travels with her, aware that she had gone off, initially, because of him; because of the break-up. At the time, she had not even told him that she was going; he had learned it from Angus, his old business partner, who had sided firmly with Ella.

‘Yes, I did,’ said Ella. They fell silent for a while. Charles could not think of a single word or phrase that would not sound banal. He woefully tried to remember what he usually talked about. Memories of conversations with Cressida floated into his mind, but were entirely visual. He could not even recall the sound of Cressida’s voice, let alone what she ever said, or what he said in return.

‘The Ethiopians’, said Ella thoughtfully, ‘are the most wonderfully elegant race.’ She paused. Charles felt foolish. Should he say something? ‘It was one of the things that struck me most about the country,’ continued Ella. She was striding forward with a regular pace, not looking at Charles, but talking as though to herself. ‘All the people have very fine bones, and aristocratic features. The women are utterly beautiful. They wear these wonderful white robes, which go down to the ground and cover their heads, so they look as if they might be Arabic rather than African.
And each robe has an embroidered border. Some are simple and plain, but others are very ornate. I was told they even use thread made from pure gold.’

As Ella talked, Charles listened, enchanted. He had forgotten her husky, dusky, coppery voice; had forgotten her power of telling a simple story so that it captivated her listeners. He walked silently in the dark, willing her to continue for ever. The further they walked from the house, the more he heard her voice, the later it got, the more alive he felt. An unspecified exhilaration ran through him as he considered the empty hours of the night which stretched out before them.

‘And then we tried to eat a traditional Ethiopian dish called injera,’ Ella was saying. ‘It had the exact look, texture and taste of carpet underlay. In fact, maybe it was carpet underlay.’ She gave a sudden gurgle of laughter. Charles suddenly felt fiercely jealous. Once, he had been the worldly-wise, experienced one. He had instructed Ella in the vagaries of modern art; had taught her how to eat semolina as a savoury dish; had introduced her to drugs and oral sex. But now she had leap-frogged ahead of him. She had seen, smelt, touched and tasted places he was never likely to see. She had mixed with the kind of people who would despise Charles, his wife, his car, his sailor-suited blond twins. She had met and been invited to live
with Maud Vennings. This last, Charles could hardly bear to think about. If it hadn’t been for him, Ella would probably never have heard of Maud Vennings.

‘When do you go to Italy?’ he said abruptly.

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Ella. ‘When I get tired of England, I suppose. I’ve been back a month, and already I’m getting itchy feet.’

‘I never thought you were a natural traveller,’ said Charles in a rather suspicious voice.

‘No, neither did I,’ said Ella mildly. ‘I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting to hate it’

‘Then why did you go?’ The question was out before Charles could stop himself. Shit, he thought to himself.

There was a short silence. Then Ella spoke.

‘Do you want to know why I went?’ she said, in a light, toneless voice. ‘Do you really want to know?’ Charles was silent. ‘I decided to go’, she continued, ‘when I bumped into you in the street, just after you’d moved out of the house and it was all over between us. It was in Silchester. I was coming out of the wool shop, thinking about something else completely, and there you were.’

‘Well, I do live in Silchester,’ said Charles, defensively.

‘I still remember it so clearly,’ said Ella, ignoring
him. ‘You sort of waved, and smiled, and you kissed me on both cheeks and pretended to be pleased to see me, and said I was looking well. But you didn’t look me in the eye. And then you rushed off without saying anything else. That was the first time I’d seen you since we broke up, and the way you acted, I could have been anyone.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Charles feebly.

‘I didn’t want you to take me in your arms and say it had all been a mistake. Well, perhaps I did want that. But if I couldn’t have that, what I wanted most of all was to talk about it. To you. Not to well-meaning people who didn’t understand.’ She smiled. ‘But you ran away, and pretended I didn’t exist. And I couldn’t bear that. So I decided to go away.’

They had come to the far side of the field, and Ella sank to the ground, her voluminous skirts ballooning darkly around her. Charles sat more gingerly, feeling in the blackness for thistles, nettles, suspicious patches of mud. He could see nothing of Ella but the glint of her eyes.

‘I didn’t mean to run away,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He struggled for words. ‘We should have talked.’ He reached impulsively for her hand, brushing against her thigh in the darkness, suddenly wanting to feel her warm flesh against his. But she pulled her hand away.

‘I was so alone,’ said Ella, in her low, penetrating, merciless voice. ‘You had the Print Centre, you had all your friends in Silchester, you had Cressida. I didn’t. How do you think I felt?’

Charles desperately cast his mind back, trying to remember what he’d thought; how he’d felt. But it was all a blank. He couldn’t even remember why he’d fallen for Cressida in the first place. He began to think he had never had any feelings at all.

‘I was a callous bastard,’ he murmured.

‘Don’t glamorize yourself,’ said Ella. ‘You were a typical male.’ She threw her head back and her throat gleamed palely in the moonlight. Charles stared at her, disconcerted. Ella had grown up on her travels; she had new ideas, new ways of thinking, a new self-assurance. He wondered, with a stab of jealousy, who had put those new ideas into her mind. She moved slightly, and the moonlight shifted onto her breasts, glinting on the exposed curves; highlighting her shoulder where her dress had slipped down. Slowly, cautiously, he stretched out a hand and touched her shoulder. She didn’t move. He drew his finger down, over the swell of her breast, then up to her neck and behind her ear. He began to caress her neck.

An owl hooted near by, and he jumped, startled. Suddenly it came to him that he was alone with Ella in the middle of a field in the middle of the night, and
that they were about to make love. Then he wondered why he hadn’t realized this sooner.

Patrick and Caroline walked up the stairs with Stephen and Annie in a state of jovial
bonhomie
. They embraced affectionately, then departed to their various rooms. But as soon as they were alone in their bedroom, Patrick rounded on Caroline with coldly furious eyes.

‘Just what do you think you’re playing at?’ he demanded.

‘What do you mean?’ Caroline walked past him and sank heavily onto her dressing-table stool. She leaned forward and stared at her face in the mirror. Then she groaned.