Golden Hour (2 page)

Please don't tell me I'm back on the market.

She feels a wave of panic wash over her. Thirty years old and starting again.

I can't do this.

After all, it's not as if anything's actually been said. Here's Andrew by her side just like before. No bridges burned. All she said was, “Later.” Except now he knows she's avoiding the issue, and why would she do that if there isn't a problem? Barely a word spoken but so much understood.

He gets her a lemonade. He shows no sign that he might
be angry with her. Or hurt. Would it be easier if he did? Fleetingly she imagines a different Andrew, one who would swear at her, saying, “What the fuck's going on?” After all, they have only one week to go. There is a case for urgency. He could stand in front of her, eyes no longer seeking to please, and say to her, “Fuck all this talk of later. We sort this out now.” Except Andrew's eyes do seek to please. They're fine eyes, large and amber-brown behind his rimless glasses. When his eyes are on her they're forever watchful, checking to see what mood she's in, trying to anticipate her wishes. This has the effect of making her petulant.

I have a bad character.

This was always her mother's warning to her. “You watch out, Maggie,” she would say. “It's all very well being pretty and getting what you want, but it'll ruin your character.”

“They have a sheep race,” Andrew is saying to her. “This I have to see.”

They cruise the rough-cut field. Henry Broad is wandering about looking lost. Maggie barely knows him, but they talked once at a village party and discovered a mutual love of history. He's bald, with a long worried face and intent eyes.

“Isn't this something?” he says, gesturing round him. “We're back in the Fifties. Retro chic, marinaded in irony.”

Maggie doesn't follow this at all, but she decides she likes Henry.

“Whatever you say, Henry.”

“Can I test my theory on you? You have to name your favorite film, or book, or music.”

“Is it a trick question?”

“No, not at all.”

Maggie's mind goes blank. What music do I like? What films? There's so much, and yet nothing comes to mind.

“I can do it,” says Andrew. “
Once Upon a Time in the West
, Sergio Leone's masterpiece.”

Maggie suppresses a spasm of irritation. This is one of the things about Andrew that she doesn't like. He keeps lists.

“Can I have a graphic novel for a book?”

Henry Broad looks baffled. “I suppose so. Why not?”

“Neil Gaiman's
Sandman
.”

“Oh, Andrew,” says Maggie. “No one's ever heard of that.”

“Actually it's a classic, and a huge seller.”

“Great,” says Henry. “I'm not sure whether that proves my point or not.”

“What point?”

“My idea is that we like the art we like because it projects the picture of ourselves that we want to project. So if you secretly love
The Sound of Music
, you might conceal that and say you like
Brokeback Mountain
best, because it makes you appear cooler.”

“I liked both of them,” says Maggie.

“Well, I expect I'm wrong.”

Henry drifts away.

“Were you trying to appear cooler?” Maggie says to Andrew.

“I'm not sure,” he says, furrowing his brow, considering the possibility. Always so scrupulously fair.

Maybe it's a male thing, this keeping lists of what you've read and seen. Or a child thing. Small children are forever asking, What's your favorite color? What's your favorite animal? And now with Facebook everyone has to reduce their personality to a few bullet points. My music. My photographs. My friends.

I don't want to be on a list.

So what do I want? Who do I want?

Three very pretty girls are running about by a line of straw bales, calling out to the crowd, taking money for betting slips. They're all wearing very short shorts, long bare legs, bare feet:
the three daughters of the local farmer, Martin Linton. Martin himself is knee-deep in sheep in a pen in the shade of the chestnut tree. This is the sheep race.

The oldest of the Linton girls, Lily, is maybe fifteen, but is practically a young woman now, meaning she has very evident breasts. The men standing round can't keep their eyes off her. The man in the cream jacket too.

I'm over thirty. What chance do I have?

She moves so she comes into Cream Jacket's eye-line and he gives her a nod, acknowledging that a connection now exists. Maggie turns quickly to smile at Andrew.

“Are you going to have a flutter?”

“I have to study the form first,” says Andrew.

Maggie glances back toward Cream Jacket. He's moved away.

So is this it? From now on, every man I meet between the ages of thirty and fifty I'm going to flirt with, asking myself: Is he free? Do I fancy him? Does he fancy me?

Maggie knows she's attractive to men, with her smiling eyes and her sweet face and her petite figure. They always think she's younger than she is, and usually make the mistake of thinking she needs to be protected. But if it's big boobs you're after, forget it.

Andrew's gone off to examine the runners in the sheep race. Rosie and Poppy Linton are now on either side of him, competing with each other to take his bet.

Jimmy Hall comes shambling up to Maggie.

“Too bloody hot,” he says.

His sagging red face shining with sweat.

“What's the news, Jimmy?”

Jimmy Hall edits the local weekly newspaper, which means he writes all the stories too. From time to time Maggie has provided carefully worded quotes about conservation matters.

“We've got a film star coming.” He lowers his voice as if it's a secret between them. “Colin Firth.”

“Coming here?”

“Filming all next week. On the Downs. There'll be crowds.”

“Do you think so?”

“Oh, you're too young,” says Jimmy Hall sadly. “He was Darcy.”

Andrew is making a ludicrously thorough inspection of the field. Each of the seven sheep in the race is daubed with a color on its back. Laura Broad, Henry's wife, who is standing nearby, is also hesitating over which sheep to back. Looking up, her eyes meet Maggie's and she smiles. She and Maggie once spent a whole train journey to London talking about how the past lives on for them in
things
. Laura's special expertise is in old manuscripts and rare books.

“Hello, Maggie,” she says. “Heavenly day.”

“A pound on Lewes Lady,” says Andrew.

Lewes Lady is the sheep with blue on its back.

“A pound on Lewes Lady for me too,” says Laura.

“Crikey!” says Martin Linton. “It's a ring! Poppy, shorten the odds on Lewes Lady. The big money's coming in.”

Laura gives Andrew a smile.

“You look as if you know what you're doing,” she says. “I'm sure you're an expert.”

Andrew puts one finger to his lips.

“Ssh! Don't give me away. I'm here incognito.”

Maggie plays along with the joke.

“Andrew Herrema, the world's foremost sheep-racing expert.”

Laura laughs. “Are you really called Andrew Herrema?”

“Yes,” says Andrew. “It's not easy having a name that sounds like a typo.”

“Any relation to Menno Herrema?”

“My uncle,” says Andrew, surprised. “Or he was.”

“Yes,” says Laura. “I heard he'd died.”

So it turns out that Andrew's uncle was a collector of first editions, and Laura knows all about him.

“He had the best collection of Golden Age detective fiction ever. Where is it now?”

“Well,” says Andrew. He gives a quick glance at Maggie. “I've got it.”

“You've got it! Are you a collector too?”

“No,” says Andrew. “All that stuff does nothing for me at all. But my uncle cared about it so much.”

Maggie is surprised and puzzled by that look of Andrew's. There's something here that he believes affects her. But what?

Henry Broad joins them.

“Guess who's coming to the garden party?” he says to Laura.

“Nick Griffin of the BNP. I just heard.”

“Oh, Lord!” says Laura. “Will there be demos and so on?”

“I very much hope so,” says Henry.

Laura explains to Maggie and Andrew, looking apologetic.

“We've been asked to one of the Buckingham Palace garden parties. God knows why. Ten thousand long-serving counselors and us.”

“And Nick Griffin,” says Henry. “It might even get interesting.”

“Henry,” says Laura, “I want to ask Maggie and Andrew over for dinner.” To Maggie and Andrew, “How about Saturday?”

“Fine with me,” says Andrew.

Before Maggie can qualify this thoughtless response, the sheep race begins. Everyone crowds round the short hurdle-lined track to urge on their favorite. Martin Linton opens the gate and comes out rattling a yellow bucket of sugar beet. The sheep follow. Martin lopes down the track, and the sheep break into a waddle, still packed close together. The crowd starts to shout. The sheep become alarmed, and break into a
run. The crowd goes moderately wild. The sheep scramble over the straw bales placed in their way, and so the field spaces out.

“Come on, Lewes Lady!” cry Andrew and Laura.

Lewes Lady does not win. Andrew and Laura share a rueful grin.

“I'm beginning to think you may not be the world's foremost sheep-racing expert,” Laura says.

“Damn!” says Andrew. “Exposed again.”

“But you're on for Saturday, then?”

Maggie feels trapped. What on earth was Andrew thinking of, saying, “Fine with me”? But of course he spoke to please. His automatic reflex, which is to be obliging, overrode his common sense. So now, because Andrew is such a sweetheart, because everyone loves Andrew, she will have to be the witch, the bitch, the one who gives offense.

“Let me check my diary when I get home,” she says to Laura. “We'd love to come, I'm just not sure what's happening next weekend.”

She catches sight of the man in the cream jacket over by the Bonfire Society stall. He has his hand on the arm of the woman beside him, they're laughing together at something. The sun goes behind a cloud, and all at once it feels cold.

“Let's go,” Maggie says to Andrew.

Too many dogs and children.

As they head back across the field she says, “I never knew you had an uncle.”

“I hardly knew him. Turns out he left me this collection of books. Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, that sort of stuff. I don't want it at all, but I feel I should honor his memory or something. Apparently the collection's worth a lot.”

“Like how much?”

“Maybe sixty or seventy thousand.”

“Good God!”

“I was going to tell you. As a sort of nice surprise.”

Because seventy thousand is house-deposit money. Settling-down money. So I should be grateful and happy. But nowadays we leave it too long. We know each other too well. When the moment comes the excitement's long gone, and you're left thinking—is this it? And that means you're a spoiled bitch. He's solvent and loyal and kind, what more do you want?

Just—more.

Maggie knows she should ask how it's a nice surprise, but she can't. The words won't come out. A stubbornness has got hold of her and won't let her go. She feels as if Andrew is making her walk backward into a windowless room, and even his silence, his not-pursuing of the unspoken topic, is herding her through the doorway. Once inside the door will shut and she'll never be able to get out again.

His mobile rings. He checks the number and takes the call, with a quick shrug of apology. She hears his calm voice reassuring a panicked client.

“Have you tried rebooting? Just switch it off at the main switch and then on again.”

This is his work, trouble-shooting problems with computer systems. Five o'clock on a sunny summer evening, no time for anyone to be sitting in front of a screen.

“I'm not at my laptop right now. Give me half an hour and I'll call back and log into your system.”

He puts his phone away.

“Sorry about that.”

Behind them in the emptying field the band is playing “My Way” to the sound of smashing crockery. The sun is out again.
The husbands and wives and children and dogs are heading for their cars.

Because of all that she hasn't said, Andrew understands that something has gone wrong.

“I shouldn't have said we were okay for Saturday evening. I wasn't thinking. But she seems nice.”

“She is nice. They're both nice.”

“I think she wants to talk to me about my uncle's collection.”

Suddenly, urgently, Maggie wants to be alone. She doesn't want Andrew to stay for supper, as he usually does. She doesn't want to have to face the question of what to do next Saturday, because once begun, that discussion has no escape route. Nothing whatsoever has happened, but Maggie feels an extraordinary degree of turmoil. It's not just her future with Andrew that's hanging in the balance, it's her entire sense of herself. Because Andrew is so sure and so generous, she feels tight and mean. Because he's so steady in his love, she feels incapable of love. She's appalled at herself for wanting him to go, but that is what she wants. Now. At once. What excuse can she give him? There is none.

“I'm feeling a bit anti-social right now,” she says. “You know how I get sometimes.”

“Yes,” he says.

For a moment it seems like he'll say more, but he doesn't. She realizes she has no idea what's going on inside him. He could be angry. He could be disappointed. He could be unaware.

They're walking back to the cottage.

“Maybe I should head on back,” he says. “Back to London, I mean.”

At once she feels intense relief. Then in quick succession, gratitude that he's made it easy, guilt that she's hurt him, resentment that he makes her feel guilty, and shame that she's taking it out on him. The usual suspects.