A Passionate Man (18 page)

‘Mr Vinney, that is not perhaps relevant—'

‘A million quid!' someone shouted from the back.

‘That's what that field's worth, as a site! A million quid!'

‘Half,' Richard Prior called without heat.

‘I'm not moving,' Cyril Vinney said, ‘until I get an answer to my question.'

Why do I bother, Liza thought, watching Simon Jago attempt to talk Cyril Vinney down. Why do I care what Archie thinks? ‘You have such power,' Blaise had written. ‘It's the power of someone both mysterious and honest. What a combination! I admire you so. Can't you see?'

Archie was saying, ‘I do think we should get off the question of money, and on to the question of the preservation of village life.'

‘Tell that to old Prior!' Cyril Vinney shouted.

Simon Jago said that he would like all remarks addressed to the chair.

There were some sentences in Liza's letter from Blaise that she knew by heart, even though she had only read it a few times. I deserve this, she told herself; I deserve to be recognized for myself at last. Archie doesn't see me for what I am, he only sees me in relation to himself. ‘You are changing me,' Blaise had written. ‘I am different, I have a different vision because of you.' Liza looked down at her lap. Simon Jago was explaining how the field in question was the end of a long green corridor running out from Winchester, and, if it disappeared, the remaining strip could then be considered an infill all the way to the industrial estates on the edge of the city. ‘That field,' said Simon, ‘may not look like much to you. But to planners and developers it is a last bastion, a bastion they want demolished.'

Archie, at the back, stirred uneasily. He did not in the least want to continue sitting next to Susan Prior, but he felt both that Richard was right and that to move seats now would create more rifts than ever. He glanced at the back of Liza's head. It looked extremely indignant. He could not blame her, and yet he felt, with a sinking heart, that she was not handling her opinion well, that she might humiliate herself. He also felt, almost above anything, that he had not moved because he could not. An alarming inertia, the inertia that seemed to lie in wait for him these days like a migraine, filled his mind and limbs with lead. His glance strayed back to Liza. She couldn't help him, could she? Or wouldn't she? He must not think about it. He must divert his mind.

Between Liza and Archie, in the crowd, sat the Vicar, Colin Jenkins, who ostentatiously expressed no opinion on the development, but who was quite unable to resist a meeting. Archie's roving thoughts swooped down on him like a bird of prey. Colin's wife was out on night duty, no doubt, bent upon her relentless task of asserting her independence from Colin's spiritual master. Archie thought He probably got entered on Chrissie Jenkins's kitchen calendar on a weekly basis, along with nursing shifts and parish meetings. Pop God in for ten minutes between the Thursday Club for young mums and a trip to Tesco, and that's Him dealt with until the weekend.

Mrs Betts was handing out forms. They were forms for enrolment in the Society. She swept deliberately past Archie and the Priors.

‘May I have one?' Archie said. ‘I'd like to see—'

‘Never too late for a change of heart,' Mrs Betts said.

Susan Prior leaned to look at the form with him.

‘I'm sorry if I upset your wife.'

‘Would you say so to her?'

Susan got up and walked to the front of the hall. Everyone was standing now, Liza with the Jagos, and Susan said to her, without preamble, ‘I'm sorry if you thought I was rude.'

‘You were rude,' Diana Jago said.

‘I don't have to agree with you,' Liza said, wishing she had not said it the moment it was out and then, making matters worse, ‘I am perfectly entitled to my own opinion.'

Susan looked at her.

‘So you are,' she said, and moved away.

Simon Jago put a hand under Liza's elbow.

‘Forget it.'

‘She always sounds so sneering—'

‘No, no. Just blunt. Calls a spade a spade.'

Liza said, ‘I'd better find Archie—'

‘Of course.'

‘Thank you. Thank you for standing up for me.'

She pushed through the disorderly crowd of chairs and people.

‘Poor little thing,' Diana said, watching her go. ‘I don't suppose she's ever said boo to Archie before.'

‘Come on. Archie wouldn't be hard on her. Not Archie . . .'

‘Every marriage,' Diana said surprisingly, ‘has its own balance. It's a natural balance. Liza's tried to tip theirs a bit, that's all.'

‘Good God. Has she? Why?'

‘Search me. I just know—'

‘Forty-seven members,' Mrs Betts said triumphantly, steaming up to them. ‘And eleven more promises. Now, Mr Jago, we really can get started.'

There was a crush to get out of the hall. In it, Liza lost Archie and found herself next to Colin Jenkins who said he hoped she didn't mind him saying so but he was a bit concerned about the fire hazard of the Sunday School carrying real candles at their crib blessing service.

‘Twelve children,' Liza said. ‘Or fourteen. A dozen little candles. Parents all round. I'm sure it will be perfectly safe.'

‘There ought to be a code of practice about these things,' Colin said. ‘Then we'd know where we were.'

Liza stared. Ahead of her in the crowd she glimpsed Archie, head and shoulders above the rest. She saw Sharon Vinney pluck at him as he passed, and mouth something, and she saw Archie bend swiftly towards her and then, as if she had hit him, jerk away from her and shove his way forward into the night outside.

‘Excuse me,' Liza said to Colin Jenkins and began to press forward herself. She had to pass very close to Sharon Vinney who wore a quilted skiing jacket and swinging ear-rings in the form of crucifixes.

‘You can tell him,' Sharon said loudly to Liza as she went by, giving out a blast of fried food and old cigarette, ‘you can tell him that I'm not the only one. The whole village thinks the same. The whole place—'

In the lane outside, Liza could find no Archie. She called him, self-conscious at the sound of her voice and his name. After a while, Mrs Pinkney from the bungalow crept up and said she had seen Archie walking away a few moments ago, in the direction of home.

‘Quite fast, Mrs Logan. I think he thought you were ahead of him. At least, I wouldn't like to be definite, but I think—'

Liza set off, running. At the Beeches Lane turning, she caught Archie up.

‘I'm here!' she called. ‘Archie! Wait!'

He took several more strides before he halted.

‘Mrs Pinkney said you thought I'd gone—'

‘No,' Archie said.

‘But why did you rush off, then? Why didn't you wait? It's dark, Archie, it's a dark night—'

‘Sorry,' he said. ‘Sorry.'

His voice sounded half strangled.

‘Was it Sharon? I came ushing out after you, just in case, and here you are stampeding off and just leaving me—' She broke off. She couldn't see his face. She took a deep breath and said loudly, ‘Well, whatever she said to you, you bloody well deserve!'

Archie began to walk again. She hurried to keep up with him.

‘What, Archie, what is it, what did she say? What—'

‘She said,' Archie shouted, ‘she said I was neglecting her mother and that I was not fit to be a doctor.'

Liza drew a huge breath.

‘But that's nonsense. Take no notice. You know it isn't true—'

Archie swung round in the lane, almost on the spot where Blaise had said, ‘If you only knew the power that is yours,' and gripped Liza's shoulders.

‘It is not nonsense. It is true.'

Oh, my God, Liza thought, I can't stand any more of this. It's always been bad, Archie's violent overreaction to things, but this autumn it's got really out of control. And I haven't got the energy to humour him any more, really I haven't. She drew a breath.

‘Sharon Vinney,' said Liza in the level, quiet voice she used in class, ‘is a mischief-maker. You've said it yourself, often. There's nothing she likes better than a bit of trouble to stir. And it isn't as if she does anything for her mother herself. She expects the Health Service to do it all. She expects you to do everything she won't. I'm sorry I shouted,' Liza said with great kindness. ‘Really I am. But you mustn't be a silly Archie.'

He drew his breath in sharply. Liza tried to take his hand in the darkness and found his fist was clenched.

‘Archie, please—'

‘I'm hungry,' he said. ‘I'm terribly hungry,' and began to walk away once more, up the lane, leaving her no alternative but to follow.

‘I don't know what's the matter,' Liza said to her sister on the telephone. ‘It's like living with some mad stranger. He sat miles away from me at the meeting. Then he just let Susan Prior be frightfully insulting without even attempting to defend me. And then he took some stupid village remark to heart and rushed off home leaving me to follow on my own. In the dark.'

Clare, whose genuine sympathy was not unmixed with a small pleasure at Liza's dismay, settled herself more comfortably by the telephone and said, ‘Does he know about Blaise, do you suppose?'

There was a brief, complete silence.

‘How do you know about Blaise?'

‘From Blaise.'

‘What?'

‘He came here,' Clare said, while the pleasure grew and began to dwarf the sympathy. ‘He came here because he was desperate for someone to talk to.'

‘I don't believe it!'

‘It's true. Of course,' Clare said, ignoring the huge excitement she had felt when Blaise described his love for Liza, ‘I didn't encourage him at all. I mean, I'm sure he's as much in love with the
idea
of being in love as he is with you. I'm sure you see that.'

Liza said nothing.

‘After all,' Clare said, sensing a tiny triumph, ‘he can't hold a candle to Archie. And it's just a crush, really, isn't it, a schoolboy crush?'

Liza took a deep breath.

‘Archie knows nothing about Blaise, because there is nothing to know.'

Clare's triumph began to deflate.

‘Liza—'

‘I can't help Blaise's feelings. I can help my own and they are under perfect control. I don't need you to point out what the matter with Blaise is.'

‘No,' said Clare, drooping.

‘You're as bad as Archie,' Liza said, gathering strength. ‘You imagine all kinds of awful things that couldn't possibly happen. Do you really think I would risk all I've got for something so silly?'

‘No,' Clare said.

‘Let's stop talking about it,' Liza said, generous at the approach of victory. ‘I tell you why I really rang. It's about Christmas. Will you come and have Christmas Day here? Please. We'd love it.'

Typical, Clare thought miserably, putting down the telephone. I have the upper hand for the first time in ten years and I lose it in three sentences. Not just that, but Liza's right. She was justified in being cross. Who, in their right minds, would risk Archie for Blaise? She got up and went along the hall to her sitting room. On the table in the window she had put a neat, small Christmas tree, carefully decorated in gold and silver and scarlet. Archie would laugh at that tree. He'd think it half-hearted, inhibited. No wonder Liza had strength, living with someone of such appetites. It gave you confidence, being with Archie. Her tree had no confidence, poor thing, sitting neatly on its table, obediently glowing with symmetrical fairy lights. She leaned against the wall and looked at it.

‘Sorry,' Clare said to her Christmas tree.

On Christmas Eve, Sir Andrew and Marina telephoned from Kenya. They were in the last week of their honeymoon. The children, dressed for bed, had a minute or two each on the telephone to them. Imogen was very excited.

‘Hello, lady, hello, lady, hello, lady,' Imogen shouted to Africa. From Africa, Archie could hear his father laugh.

It was paradise, they said. They were at Malindi and had been on safari. Marina was beside herself about the birds. They had been on a private safari and had been given breakfast out in the bush, breakfast with napkins and Cooper's Oxford marmalade and eggs and bacon cooked on a bonfire.

‘But no
Times
,' Sir Andrew said. ‘All that was missing was
The Times
.'

‘Are you brown?' Liza asked. ‘Are you brown as nuts?'

‘As cornflakes—'

‘Oh! Oh, it sounds so marvellous!'

‘It is,' Sir Andrew said. He was laughing. ‘It is. Her ladyship shot a guinea fowl. Lovely shot. We'll bring the cape back, for salmon flies. For Archie.'

‘Can you hear that boom-crash?' Marina asked, coming on the line to Thomas. ‘Can you hear? That's the Indian Ocean. I'll bring you shells—'

‘Yes,' Thomas said, cramming his ear to the receiver. ‘Yes.'

‘Happy Christmas, darling. Give them all a hug from us. A big Christmas hug.'

It was quiet and dull when they put the receiver down.

Mikey said sadly, ‘They saw a lion.'

Christmas seemed suddenly commonplace, beside a lion.

Liza said, ‘Everything she touches becomes special, doesn't it? You can't have ordinariness, not with Marina—'

‘Sh—' Archie said.

She flashed him a look of irritation.

‘Not
still
—'