Sheer Abandon (25 page)

Jeremy went off to the gents’; Clio returned to their table. A large woman had perched herself at the corner of it, on a stool she had dragged over from the other side of the bar.

“You don’t mind, do you? There’s nowhere else to sit.”

“Well, not really,” said Clio, knowing that Jeremy would be furious, “but—”

He came back, glared at the woman.

“This is our table. Sorry.”

“Well, I’m sorry too, but there’s nowhere else and I wasn’t aware tables in pubs could be exclusively booked,” she said, and then stared at him rather intently. “I don’t know you, do I?”

“Absolutely not,” said Jeremy. He turned his glare on Clio. “You should have kept the table. Can’t we find another?”

The woman sighed and got out a crumpled paperback. “Please don’t worry,” she said, with heavy irony. “I won’t disturb you.”

Maurice Trent, the landlord, appeared with their food. “Here we are then. Sorry to have kept you. Nice to see you both. What a to-do this week, eh? Paparazzi all over the place, load of rubbish all of it. That girl you were talking to on Sunday, Dr. Scott, she was one of them, wasn’t she? Nice, she seemed, not the sort you’d expect on a paper like that.”

Clio had often read of bowels turning to water and had scoffed at it; she knew suddenly exactly what it meant.

“What girl was that?” said Jeremy, his expression ice-hard.

“Oh, just one of the reporters,” said Maurice. “First one down, I think. Yes, all right, all right,” he called to the barmaid who was gesticulating at him. “Coming. You can’t get the help these days, I tell you that. Enjoy your meal.”

Jeremy stared at Clio. “You were talking to one of the reporters? On Sunday? And you didn’t mention it?”

“No. I mean yes. Well, not because she was a reporter. Honestly, Jeremy, I promise you. She just turned up out of the blue. I mean, she
is
a reporter, but we—we went travelling together years ago, when we were both eighteen. I hadn’t seen her since. I—”

“And she just turned up, on your doorstep, at precisely the right moment. How very convenient for her.”

“Yes, well she rang me because I was Mrs. Bradford’s GP, and then she recognised my name, you know how these things happen, what a small world it is—”

“No, I don’t. Actually. As far as I can remember, you sneaked out of the house, under the pretence of making some house calls. And came to meet her here, and—”

“Jeremy, please be quiet. Everyone’s looking.” He turned round; it was true, half the bar was staring at them. He stood up. “We can discuss this later. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to settle the bill.”

“Yes. Of course. But Jeremy—”

He was gone. The fat woman looked up from her paperback.

“I’ve just realised why he looks familiar,” she said. “He’s the one in the
Sun
, isn’t he? The one who said—”

Clio half ran to the bar, flung a twenty-pound note at the bemused Maurice Trent, and went out into the car park. Jeremy’s car had gone.

“Martha?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Hi, Ed.”

She had literally dreamt of this, imagined it so often over the past few days, while the phone so determinedly rang, delivering unwelcome other people to her, bleeped her endlessly with text messages from other equally unwelcome people, while e-mails leapt relentlessly onto her screen from nobody she wished to hear from: so that now, when it was really him, she wasn’t surprised at all. Just terrified.

Her voice didn’t sound terrified; it sounded its brisk, orderly self.

“I…I’m sorry about the other night,” he said. “I said some pretty bad things.”

“Justified, most of them, I’d say.” Less orderly, the voice, then. Shaky, out of breath.

“Even if they were…I shouldn’t have said them.”

“Well, they did some good,” she said, “or maybe they did. I’ve—” No, she mustn’t say that. Start talking about herself, her career. “I’ve done a lot of thinking,” she said.

“Oh. Well, I didn’t want to leave it like that. That’s all. I wanted us to stay—stay friends at least.”

“Of course.” God, this hurt worse than she could have believed.

“Yes. So—sorry.”

“Ed, it’s OK.” She struggled to sound light-hearted. “I forgive you.”

A long silence, then: “Great,” he said, “I’m glad. Maybe—”

“Yes?” Don’t sound hopeful, Martha, for God’s sake.

“Maybe we could have a drink one night.”

“Yes. Let’s. Call me. Or I’ll call you.”

“Fine. Right, well—well, cheers. See you later.”

If only those words could have had their real meaning: if only she
could
see him later, see him smile, feel his lips brush her hair, take his hand, kiss him, hold him, lie down with him, have him…

“Bye Ed,” she said. Very cool, very controlled again. Martha, again, in fact. Only Martha had never hurt like this before. Well, not quite like this.

Thank God, she was so busy. How could she have coped with this misery if she wasn’t?

Jocasta was walking into a bar when her phone rang.

“Is that Jocasta? This is Jilly. Jilly Bradford.”

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Bradford. How are you? Nice to hear from you.”

“I’m very much better, thank you. Bored to death, of course. They won’t let me out of here until I can manage the stairs, and even then I can’t go home, I’ve got to stay with my daughter. Of course I’m fond of them all, but I want to be in my own home. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for putting that nice photograph in the paper. It was very flattering, and it will certainly disabuse everyone of the notion that I’m some senile old woman. Kate bought about six copies. She’s the heroine of the hour at school, of course. Very indignant that your name wasn’t on it, though.”

Jocasta laughed. “That often happens in a follow-up like this one. She’s so great, your granddaughter. I think she’ll do very well in life.”

“I think so, too. I hope so, anyway. She deserves to.”

There is a sensation that every good reporter knows: a kind of creeping excitement, a thud of recognition at something forming itself just out of reach, something worth pursuing: Jocasta felt it then.

“She was telling me all about being adopted,” she said.

“Was she? She obviously sensed a kindred spirit. She doesn’t normally like talking about it.”

“Oh really? No, she was very open with me, brought the subject up herself, in fact.”

“Extraordinary story, isn’t it?”

“Well, not that extraordinary. Except that these days most girls don’t give their babies up; they keep them and raise them on their own.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant her being found in that way, at the airport. Didn’t she tell you that bit?”

“Well—well, not in any detail, no.” Careful, Jocasta, careful…

“Oh, I see. But she told you the rest? It’s so hard for her. She feels it very keenly, poor little thing. Being just abandoned like that.”

“Yes, it must be…hard.”

Her phone bleeped warningly. Shit. If it ran out of power now, she’d scream.

“Terribly hard. She wants to find her, of course, but I think—”

Another bleep.

“Mrs. Bradford, I’m going to have to ring you back. My phone’s dying on me. If you—”

“Oh, my dear, no need. I just wanted to say thank you. Come and see me when I get home to Guildford; I’ll tell Kate to organise it. Or we could have a jolly lunch in town. That would probably suit you better. Goodbye and—”

The phone died. Jocasta wanted to throw it on the ground and jump up and down on it. It was her own fault, of course, totally her own fault; she’d known it was low; she should have done it that evening before she left, but—well.

Now what should she do? She could hardly ring Jilly back, on a public hospital phone, and say, “Now, about Kate and her adoption, do goon…”

The moment had been lost. And it was her own fault.

Jeremy came in at about eight, the taut fury, which Clio had grown to dread, set on his face. She smiled awkwardly, said, “Jeremy, hello. You must be hungry. I’ve got some very nice jugged hare if you’d—”

“Please don’t try that,” he said.

“Try what?”

“Pretending everything’s normal. It simply makes it worse.”

“Jeremy, I wish you’d let me explain. I didn’t say anything about the hospital or Mrs. Bradford to Jocasta.”

“I thought you met her in the pub.”

“I did. But only to talk about old times.”

“Which you couldn’t have done in the house? You had to sneak off without explaining she was an old friend?”

“Well, yes. I thought you’d be suspicious, that you wouldn’t believe me. I knew you wouldn’t listen, that you wouldn’t let me go.” She was beginning to feel angry herself.

“I wouldn’t let you go! Is that how you see me? As some kind of tyrant? I find that immensely insulting.”

“Well, it isn’t meant to be. I’m just trying to explain how it happened, why I did what I did.”

“And then you sat with her in the pub, this reporter friend of yours, and didn’t even discuss the wretched Bradford woman? You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes! In fact I actually asked her not to write the story and certainly not to implicate you or me in it.”

“And that was very successful, wasn’t it?”

“Actually, yes. If you read the piece you’ll see she made no mention of either of us. I could get it if you like—”

“You actually expect me to read that drivel?”

“Oh shut up,” said Clio wearily, surprising herself.

He was clearly surprised too; she so seldom went on the offensive.

“I just can’t get over your deceiving me like that,” he said, changing tack. “It was so unnecessary.”

“Maybe if you weren’t such a bully, if you didn’t treat me like some kind of inferior—”

“That’s a filthy thing to say!”

“But it’s true. You
do
bully me. You don’t respect what I do, you’ve made me give up a job I absolutely love, you’re dismissive of almost everything I say, you’re always in a bad temper—well, not always,” she added, anxious, even in her rage and misery, to be accurate, “but very often. You won’t allow me to do anything on my own, you blame me for everything that goes wrong in our lives, even the simplest thing, like someone sitting at our table in the pub. Can you wonder I didn’t ask you if I could invite an old friend round for a chat? I think it’s time you took a proper look at yourself, Jeremy, I really do.”

He said nothing, just stood staring at her in silence for several moments; then he turned and went upstairs to their room. She followed him; he had pulled out a suitcase and was putting things in it.

“What are you doing?” she asked. She was frightened now.

“I’m packing. I would have thought that was perfectly evident.”

“To go—where?”

“I’m not sure. But there clearly is no room for me here. I have nothing to contribute to our marriage. So I think it’s better I go.”

“Jeremy, don’t be stupid. Please!” She could hear the panic in her voice.

“I see nothing stupid in it. You’re obviously much better on your own. Doing your job, which clearly means much more to you than I do. It made me feel quite ill listening to you last night, telling me how sorry everyone was, how they hadn’t replaced you yet, how much they were going to miss you. My God, how are the sick folk of Guildford going to get on without you, Clio? Could you move, please, I want to get at my shirts.”