A Touch of Love (7 page)

But Robin’s memory of this incident is slightly different; for he remembers only a drizzly May afternoon, when his examinations, far from being finished, were at their height, and being dragged away from his desk, where he was revising, with an energy born of panic rather than enthusiasm, the works of August Strindberg and Anton Chekhov, and being plonked on a bicycle by Ted in the company of three perfect strangers, the whole charade apparently deriving from the belief that he needed ‘taking out of himself’. The ride was long, the day was cold, the pub was full, the benches were wet, the champagne was flat. Nevertheless Robin, too, had managed to get drunk, and the consequence of this had been that he was unable to concentrate on his revision that night and had got an extremely low mark on a paper which should have been among his best.

And so Ted, somewhat taken aback by the discrepancy in their recollection, tries again, by saying:

‘Do you remember those long talks we used to have, long into the night, sometimes with a whole crowd of us, talking about all sorts of things, swapping ideas, having arguments, putting the world to rights, talking about politics, and books, and life, and art, and sometimes just with the two of us, drinking coffee, bursting with so much to say that we’d talk until – well, after bedtime, sometimes, about art, and life, and books, and politics, idealistic maybe, but everybody is idealistic at that age, we grow out of it, as time goes by, optimistic maybe, but young people are often optimistic, you get over it, after a while. Do you remember how we used to talk, just the two of us, long into the night, like a scene out of
The Glittering Prizes?’

But Robin’s memory of these evenings contains several material points of contradiction, and falls into two distinct halves: he remembers evenings when there were several people in his room, several of his own friends – scattered, now, and all out of touch – and they would be trying to have a serious discussion about the merits of a particular book, or the integrity of a particular philosophic system, or the trustworthiness of a particular politician, and then at some point or other Ted would barge in, lowering the tone, ruining the atmosphere, forcing the conversation around to his own range of interests, which was not extensive, even then. And the other situation was when Robin would just be preparing for bed, possibly quite early in case there was some work he wanted to start first thing in the morning, and then Ted would arrive, proffering two weak cups of instant coffee as an excuse for entering his bedroom, and he would sit on the bed, and talk about his life, which was not much of a life, even at that stage. And sometimes, in the course of talking about his life, he would talk about his feelings for Katharine, and Robin, who had his own feelings for Katharine which were not, in the last analysis, radically dissimilar to Ted’s, would become upset, inwardly, and would not be able to sleep, so that the whole of his next day’s work would be ruined.

But Ted, not to be put off by one or two minor inconsistencies in these separate versions of the same event, is soon at it again, saying:

‘Do you remember that lovely day, in that last lovely summer, when we went out on the river, the three of us, you, Katharine, and me? Katharine and I had only just got engaged – it can only have been a day or two earlier that I asked her the question that made her mine for ever. We were so much in love. You were standing up, punting, and we were sitting down, watching you. How privileged we felt. Not just privileged to be there, life’s chosen young things, in our white suits and summer dresses, eating strawberries, and cucumber sandwiches, and cream cakes, and drinking champagne, but privileged to be with each other, and to be with you. Yes, the two of us felt privileged to be with you, Robin, to feel that we had a friend in you, a shared friend. You bound us together in those days, it was almost like having a child. Of course, now we have Peter. But I have to know, Robin, I need to know now – did you sense any of that at the time? Did you know how much you meant to us?’

But it is Robin’s quiet suspicion that Ted is kidding himself, for he remembers the day in question distinctly, and it is not at all as Ted had described it. Ted and Katharine had not arrived at any kind of understanding, of that he is quite certain, because their behaviour together would surely have given it away, and then Robin would not have spent the entire afternoon in an agony of indecision, an ecstasy of trepidation, a stupor of half-formed words and held-back propositions. It is clear that Ted, seduced by the memory of an afternoon which might indeed have appeared romantic to one with his limited sense of the connotations of that word, has projected onto it the overtones of a situation which had not yet taken shape. Besides, Robin had never been able to punt; nor had Ted for that matter; Katharine was the only one who was any good at punting. So Robin toys with the idea of telling Ted that both of the concepts of privilege invoked in his reminiscence have their flaws; but something advises him that his breath would be better saved.

And so, slightly (but still not sufficiently) daunted by the number of disparities between their different accounts of the same, supposedly shared, experiences, Ted has a final bash at coaxing his friend into a mood of fond nostalgia, by saying:

‘What about that night, that unforgettable night, of the last May Ball? That unforgettable night, many of the details of which, I confess, I’ve forgotten, but one thing does stick in my mind, namely, that memorable conversation we had, on the bridge over the river, as the piper ushered in the dawn. That memorable conversation, the actual substance of which, admittedly, escapes my memory, except that I know Katharine was there too, and the three of us were together, watching the mist roll back from the water, watching the revellers in their jackets and ball gowns, revelling away, strolling beside the river, hand in hand, arm in arm, and I know that the three of us must have made a very handsome threesome, or perhaps foursome, for I forget whether you had anybody with you at the time, although presumably you must have done, now I come to think of it. Do you remember that morning, Robin? Do you remember that dawn? The dawn as it now seems, of our new lives, our brighter future?’

But this time Robin can scarcely believe his ears, so little resemblance does there appear to be between his and Ted’s version of this episode, which he remembers vividly, with a nauseous clarity. He remembers the ball, which he had attended, much against his better judgement, as a favour to a friend, who had been looking for someone to accompany his sister. He remembers this friend’s sister, who ditched him after about half an hour, for some other bloke, leaving him to wander around in helpless solitude, wretched with embarrassment. He remembers coming across Ted and Katharine, beneath an archway, she with her back against the wall, he with his arms astride her, the frightened look in her eyes as she saw Robin approach, her mouth still wet from the kiss. And he remembers being on the bridge with them, only a few hours later, after they had all had far too much to eat and drink, and Ted was leaning queasily over the muddied waters of the Cam.

‘There there,’ Katharine had said, stroking his back, slowly. ‘There there.’

‘No,’ Robin now says, five years later. ‘No, I don’t remember that at all.’

∗

Their dialogue was interrupted, at this point, by the abrupt arrival of a plastic football which landed in Ted’s lap. A small boy of about three or four came running up, and held out his hands. Ted laughed, offered the ball teasingly, withdrew it, offered it, withdrew it again and then gave it back. The boy failed to see the joke.

‘Well,’ said Ted, ‘that was a very big kick for such a little boy, wasn’t it?’

Robin looked away in disgust. He noticed that the boy’s father was staring at them. He could not be certain, but he felt that he had seen this man somewhere before.

‘Come on, Jack!’ he called, and the boy ran off.

Ted was still smiling, but his smile froze when he saw the look of wooden indifference on Robin’s face.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘Don’t you like children?’

‘Not in the way that you do.’

As soon as Robin had said this, Ted assumed such a peculiar expression, so suddenly suspicious and uneasy, that he hastened to add:

‘I mean, not to the same extent.’ He blundered on, ‘I suppose the big difference comes when you have a child of your own, but – I don’t see that happening, to me… For a while.’

‘No,’ said Ted. ‘Nor do I.’

Ted began to feel the imminence of a number of disagreeable emotions: anger, at the frustration of his efforts at reminiscence; distaste, at what he had seen, over the last twenty-four hours, of Robin’s way of life; despair, at the thought of his immediate future; and fear, when he contemplated the differences which lay between them, the murky, unspoken impulses which set Robin apart and which may even have led him to his present impasse. He decided to leave, there and then, before these emotions became too oppressive. It would look odd, but he was under no obligation to behave tactfully. In half an hour he could be back on the M
I
, heading towards Surrey, and home.

‘Look, Robin, I think I’d better be getting along,’ he said.

‘OK.’

‘If you want to stay here for a while, I can find my own way back to the car.’

‘Fine.’

Ted waited in vain for a gesture, a look, a point of contact.

‘Well, it’s been nice seeing you,’ he said. ‘After all these years.’

Robin smiled.

Ted began to walk away, down the path which leads from the memorial. Turning at the gateway, he gazed at Robin for the last time. He saw a figure huddled, on a warm summer’s evening, at one end of a park bench. Briefly it crossed his mind to wonder what on earth he might be thinking. Then he shook his head and made for the road.

Robin was thinking: ‘Forces would seem to be conspiring against me.’

PART TWO
The Lucky Man

Friday 4th July, 1986

Alun Barnes, LL. B.,
Pardoe & Goddard,
Fourth Floor,
Churchill House,
18 Jeffrey Street,
Coventry
.

Mrs E. M. Fitzpatrick,
Frankley, Isham & Waring,
39 Croftwood Road,
Coventry.

2 July 1986

Dear Emma,

Nice to see you at Margaret’s ‘do’ over in Stivichall last Wednesday. I thought she was looking very well. None of us would have believed she was going to get over it so quickly.

I was wondering whether we could get together one of these days and have an informal chat, prior to the second hearing, about Hepburn v. Greene. I think old Mr Hepburn may be about to start making noises about settling out of court, which from both our points of view would be an extremely good thing, I think. I was wondering, in fact, whether you’d like to revive our little tradition of meeting at Port’s on Fridays at lunchtime, just to compare notes?

Anyway, I shall be there on Friday, and I’ll look out for you.

All the best,

Alun

P.S. Apart from anything else, I’ve acquired some new evidence in the Grant case which I think it might be in your interest to hear about. Do try to come if you can make it.

∗

Emma laid the letter down and made a brief effort at being intrigued. The thing was, it was probably just Alun playing games again, and she had enough of that to cope with from her husband at home, at the moment. The sounds of Alison making another pot of coffee from the office kitchen seemed unusually distracting. A couple of weeks ago she would have been intrigued, no doubt about it: not that the case itself presented any special features of interest, apart from the fact that she rather liked her client, but her appetite for work had been stronger then. Now she was already beginning to feel sapped.

Alison brought the coffee in and lingered unnecessarily over the pending tray.

‘Shit,’ Emma thought. ‘She feels sorry for me, and now she’s going to say something.’

‘Anything I can give you a hand with? Things are a bit quiet next door.’

On the point of saying no, Emma hesitated, and then changed course:

‘You could file these things away,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

It was for the pleasure of watching her work, as much as anything else. Alison had been with them for nearly two years: soon she would be taking her articles. She was a neat, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman, and for some time now Emma had been taking quiet, almost surreptitious enjoyment in the way she moved with a rather diffident grace about the office, the angle of her head as she talked, the lightness and quickness of her fingers as they handled a document or opened an envelope. Sometimes she wondered why they were not better friends. There had been an evening when she had invited Alison back home, Alison and her then boyfriend, some student, and the four of them had had quite a pleasant dinner, around the kitchen table; the wine had been warm and fruity and Mark had been very charming. She recalled, with sudden clarity, the fragments of orange pith which she had seen caught between his teeth as he laughed, over the coffee. But friendship needs more fertile soil than is provided by the merely social occasion, and there remained a barrier between Emma and Alison which Emma, for one, had never been able to define, let alone cross: and now, for all her need, seemed as unlikely a time as any.

‘Alison,’ she began, none the less.

‘Yes?’

Words made a tired effort to rise; then sank.

‘Do you fancy,’ she ended up saying, ‘coming for a drink, Friday lunchtime, at Port’s?’

Alison shook her head.

‘Friday’s out. I’ve got to go down to Northampton, remember?’

‘Oh, of course.’

Emma sipped her coffee and licked the rim of the mug absently. She had forgotten about that.

∗

Port’s was a basement wine bar in the estate-agent district of the city. On Fridays you always got quite a few legal people in there, as well as the crowd from the building society next door, but it was rarely very full. Emma waited on the doorstep for a while, oddly reluctant to broach that dark interior. The city centre had looked surprisingly gentle and cheerful; she had thought how nice it would have been to spend the lunch hour on a bench in the park, with a few sandwiches and a trashy newspaper. It seemed a long time since she had done anything so unpredictable. Even seeing Alun again seemed predictable. She might have known that it would end up happening, and she supposed that he would probably try the same old tricks.