Читать книгу The Philanderer's Wife - Katherine Trelawney - Страница 6

Hilary had found herself in a rather unexpected state of emotional turmoil since agreeing to go to Cannes with Paddy. It was something she had not planned for, or thought about, and the decision (which had somehow seemed so decisive a decision) had been made so quickly. Hilary would have liked to have more time to consider. She had to accept, however, that the only person to blame for this was herself. She had felt (at least in retrospect) rushed, even pressurised into the decision, and this made her cross. But the option of saying no had been available to her.

She could still change her mind, and if she were going to, sooner would clearly be better. Several times she had considered telling Paddy that she had been offered some unrefusable subsequent engagement, or simply that she had accepted hastily and no longer wished to go. But time went on and she did none of these things. She still met Paddy regularly. Her play was running now, and Paddy had come not just to the first night but to several other performances. There was so much to talk about; they rarely mentioned Cannes. He had given her various details, and offered to book her a plane ticket. She’d refused, and said that she would come separately by train.

The disconcerting thing about him was that week by week, even day by day, she felt differently about him. He could be fun, and charming, and he could be very kind. This meant that sometimes she suddenly liked him ever so much more, but there were also plenty of times when she liked him less. He was (as his name implied) Irish, but he was a Protestant from the South, born in Dublin. He had some shocking views on the political situation, and was very hostile to the Republican movement in the North; views he had defended very aggressively from her disapproving English liberal sympathy.

“There is sometimes a bloody good reason why some groups are underdogs,” he had said. “My lot are a minority in the South, but we’ve never set off bombs all over the place. And I don’t like getting lectures on the subject from the English.”

Hilary had liked Joscelyn when she had met her at dinner, and she’d noticed that Paddy was clearly very fond of his wife. Joss seemed to be a calm, patient person, who had dealt quite charmingly with the actor Steven, who was known for being socially awkward.

She had asked Paddy if Joscelyn was coming to Cannes, and he had said no. “She’s going to be very busy around that time. She’ll be sorting out the new house, and working hard on her Open University modules.”

“But she does know that I’m going?” Hilary ventured.

“Oh, certainly,” Paddy had replied. “I’ve told her.”

Even so, she had felt a little uneasy during that conversation and had wondered whether she really felt sure about what she was doing. At one moment she had been on the point of expressing her doubts, when Paddy, who, like a large male Cinderella, had an effortless ability to make an exit from anywhere at any time, disappeared.

Joscelyn found the start of her Open University course a bit daunting. It was quite exciting, going into libraries and bookshops to get equipped with all the books she needed, but reading them – and being expected to have an intelligent response - was quite a worry. Her French A level just hadn’t prepared her for reading the likes of Racine, and she might well have given up the French option had it not been for Philippa.

“Don’t be silly,” Philippa had said. “You’ll be fine. It just takes perseverance and faith in your own ability to crack it over time.” Philippa had a degree in French and German. “My French is probably a bit rusty as well. I’ll read your set texts and we can go through them together. It’ll be good, I’ll enjoy it.”

Philippa got out her diary, and Joss found herself arranging extra tutorials, with her friend. They were kindred spirits in that way, both organised and orderly people who liked to make a plan for the future and then work to it.

Joss and Paddy’s friend Ben also offered to help. Ben had known Paddy at University, and he was now something called a venture capitalist. Paddy would joke about “Ben the Venturer” because Ben, despite doing a risky job where he put together multi-million pound deals, was quiet and precise. He wasn’t like all those flashy City types the 1980s was so full of. This was probably why he’d set up on his own. He had an office in Wardour Street, the office consisting of two rooms, one large and one small. He sublet the small one to Paddy, so the two men worked next door to each other.

“I read history at University,” he told Joss, when she told him about the help Philippa was giving. “I’m not sure I could commit to anything as structured as monthly tutorials, but we can have lunch sometimes, if you like, and see if anything I learned for my degree lodged anywhere in the brain.”

Every so often, Ben would ask Joscelyn out to lunch. She never quite knew why. True, she liked him, and he seemed to like her, but this could hardly be a sufficient reason in itself. On the first occasion, Ben had asked Paddy’s permission, and on every subsequent one, Joss did. Paddy would always be deliberately magnanimous about it.

“Of course,” he would say. “Just make sure he takes you somewhere nice.”

As Ben was single, Joscelyn inevitably felt a keen concern about his love life. He had been known to have girlfriends, but they never lasted long. She had only ever met one of them, a very quiet, slightly sullen-looking girl in her early twenties, who had soon got a job in Manchester. This seemed to bring the relationship to a complete and immediate end. Joss would sometimes ask Paddy to join with her in speculating about Ben’s private life. Paddy’s standard response, “Why don’t you ask him?” always infuriated her. Ben was just not the type of man one asked. This was one of the intriguing things about him.

Anyway, they always did go somewhere nice for lunch, and today they were in a small, friendly restaurant, which served convincing French food. Joss told Ben all about the new house. Contracts had been exchanged and the move date had been set. Ben surprised her by knowing exactly where it was.

“Oh, yes, I know,” he said matter of factly. It’s parallel to Burchlere Road, near the Italian delicatessen.”

“So you know the area?” It was always such a surprise to think that Ben led an ordinary life.

“Yes, actually, I do.”

Joscelyn knew that that was the most information she would get out of him. She knew too, that one reason why she was given the honour of Ben’s friendship was that she had the instinctive discretion not to ask too much.

“It’s very nice. And no more than you deserve. Do you have a garden?”

“A lovely one; it’s walled, and South facing. And it has a magnolia tree.”

Ben looked at her. “I imagine that you like that very much,” he said. “In the summer you will sit out there with your cup of tea and your book, safe in your own private domain. Is the magnolia tree like the one in your parents’ garden, in Wiltshire?”

Ben had never been to her parents’ house, but she had once told him about the tree, with the lovely pink and white blossom in the spring. She had actually forgotten about telling him, until he mentioned it again. Ben remembered such things, and it left her with a warm glow of being appreciated. Paddy did not, or at least not any longer. Joss realised that this did not make him any different from any normal husband. Except that he did have that facility with women he was courting. It was part of the phase of mutual appreciation, to remember little details, and to make a point of telling the other person that you had remembered. Immediately Joss felt angry about Hilary. Hilary, who was going to Cannes, and whose choice of flowers, shoes, or novels would currently be right at the very top of Paddy’s brain, the bit that could be accessed at a moment’s notice.

Joscelyn told Paddy about this as they ate scrambled eggs in the kitchen, that evening.

“So Ben is a memory man, is he? I’m surprised that you find this attractive. I thought that us poor men were dreadfully annoying because of our wearisome ability to remember actual facts. Dull matters like the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the right exit to take from a motorway, instead of being intuitive and sensitive like you women.”

“Ben is intuitive. And he doesn’t remember facts just for the sake of them. That’s the whole point.”

“Well, I wonder why he hasn’t found a better use for his remarkable talents.”

Joss said nothing.

She saw Ben again the next day, when she called into the office. Paddy had asked her to call and collect his post, as he would be away all day. She put her head round the door of Ben’s office, but he looked harassed, and sadly not at all intuitive. But he did have a neat pile of letters to hand to Joss. She took them home with her, and, true to her secretary’s training, placed them in an in-tray in the bedroom. In the rented flat, there was no place for a study. She looked through them, in the way of a professional wife; to be sure that nothing needed her husband’s urgent attention.

One them was from Barbara. It was from Hong Kong, in Barbara’s elegant, round, slightly over-large hand. In the office, Barbara had been famed for her hand-written notes. She liked to impose her distinctive presence whenever possible, and her notes reverberated with finely presented ego.

“My job here has been a bit of a disappointment, so I leave at the end of the month,” she wrote.

Damn, damn, thought Joss, just when I thought I might have got rid of her for good.

“I’ve decided to make something of it now that I’m here. Somehow I never managed a gap year or any kind of real me time, so I plan to reward myself with a few months off.”

Self-satisfied cow, Joss thought. No one was better at rewarding herself than Barbara.

“A trip to Australia and then a long cruise home,” the curly, imposing script went on. “I intend to arrive at Southampton, later this year, thoroughly pampered. A Something is winging its way to you. Don’t imagine you’ve changed. You’ll have to see if I have. Barbara.”

Joscelyn stood for a while and glared at the over-neat over-satisfied handwriting. Even the handwriting had the capacity to make her boil with fury. She put it with the others, in her bag, and left the room, shutting the door rather pointedly, although there was no one present to witness.

On the way home, Joscelyn found herself re-running the memory of that lunch with Barbara through her mind. She remembered how for a few days after their tête-à-tête Barbara made a special point of being friendly to Joscelyn when they met in the office. As time went on, she had reverted to ignoring her completely, something that was infinitely preferable.

Paddy had also been ignored by Barbara for quite a while, but she did speak to him the day before the office party to celebrate his forthcoming nuptials. Unfortunately, she explained, she would be unable to come.

“Never mind,” Paddy found himself saying to her, “We’ll have a little celebration, just the two of us.”

And so they did. It was just a drink, in one of their regular wine bars, some way from the office. This made the occasion, in fact, neither more nor less than most of their encounters had been. But Joscelyn had been furious when she found out that the drink took place the last night before Paddy took leave before the wedding. Joscelyn used to refer to the occasion as Paddy’s “stag night”, and to the elegant silk tie she gave him that evening as,

“Our wedding present from Barbara.”