Her Living Image (26 page)

“Hello.”

“Hel–hello, what are you doing here?”

“Just taking a quick breather. I was at the station, so I thought I’d come and see what you were up to.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Well – this is it –” She glanced up to the picnic tables. It was obvious that they were waiting for some sort of instructions from
her.

One of the lads on the hill wolf-whistled, and a girl shouted, “That your boyfriend, Caro?”

She laughed and turned away from him. “No Kerry – he’s all yours, if you fancy him.” Under the burst of laughter that came from the kids she turned back to Alan, her
face flushed red. “I – I’m sorry,” she said, laughing herself. “It’s awfully hard not to sink to their level.”

“That’s all right,” said Alan, feeling irrationally pleased. “The same sort of thing happens to me in the company of fat pig Robinson.”

She glanced at him with a fleetingly serious expression, then laughed. The kids were calling to her from the lock.

“I must go – look at Kevin! He’s showing them his mountain-climbing skills, would you believe – he’ll break his silly neck.” The tall boy was leaning out
at right angles to the stone wall. She moved quickly. “I’ll explain the park to you sometime. Have you had a look? Over there –” She waved an arm and ran up to the lock
again.

Alan headed back for the station. He found himself in a good mood for the rest of the day.

She joined him at his lunch table a couple of days later, and asked him what he thought of the park.

“Well – it’s a very nice field of mud. It hasn’t got pretensions to being anything else yet, has it?”

She laughed, tilting her head back quickly as if to duck out of his teasing. Eating and talking with astonishing speed, she began to describe the features of the park, as if they were plain
for anyone to see. Her enthusiasm struck Alan as almost eccentric; he poked fun at her for a while, then found himself being drawn into the sort of serious discussion which he had not experienced
since he was a student. They were conscious of the canteen emptying around them, but even when they returned their trays and hurried to the doors, it was impossible to stop talking. Afterwards it
seemed to Alan that the conversation had been stopped in mid-sentence, literally torn apart, as they had separated at the outer doors, each to go in their own direction.

He thought about her as he drove home that night. She was too serious. Too serious for what? he asked himself. The question made him squirm.

Alan had indulged in several brief sexual adventures since his marriage, but they had all been of the sort Robinson would approve
–physical and functional. He did not describe
them to himself as infidelities, because they were both different from and irrelevant to his relationship with Carolyn. Naturally he hid them from Carolyn, out of good taste, and because he knew
that she would have been upset to a disproportionate degree. She would have assumed all sorts of depths and threats which simply did not exist.

He found himself becoming angry as he drove home, angrier and angrier as if he were being squeezed by an invisible fist. When he reached the end of the road he drove past it, went round the
next roundabout and took the road for the city. He drove to Lark and Clarkson’s. As he had expected, Mike’s car was still there. Alan parked beside it, to wait for Mike to come out. He
considered telephoning Lyn to tell her he would be late. Better to do it from the pub in an hour or so. It would seem less premeditated. If he rang now he would save her the trouble of preparing an
unnecessary meal, but he knew she would be less offended if he rang later, made it sound casual and impetuous. (“Carolyn love, I’m terribly sorry – bumped into Mike out of the
blue – went for a drink, you know what it’s like – never realized the time. I might as well make a night of it now. Don’t worry about food – I’ll get some fish
and chips on the way.”) If he rang now she would say, “Oh, well, I’ll have tea with the children then,” with that reproachful edge to her voice; “Will you be
late?” Knowing, of course he would be late, if he was drinking with Mike. Suggesting that his choice to go drinking with Mike, rather than coming home to her, was a form of treachery. She
would forgive him for being forgetful, scatter-brained, not knowing the time – childish faults – but not the adult fault of preferring anyone else’s company, however briefly, to
hers.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. Often he enjoyed her company, her cooking, her body. It was the way she seemed to be constantly hovering, slightly reproachful, around the
perimeters of his days, as if to say, are there any crumbs of time for me? At weekends she offered him the children, as if they were sweets in a box. “Why don’t you take Chrissy fishing
for the day? He’d love it Alan, he really would. It’s ages since you spent any time with him on his own.” There was a reproach in the very request. He hated the way she engineered
his meetings with his own children. And he sensed that the children agreed to them only because of her insistence. They would all be much happier spending the day together without him, he was sure.
Mike suddenly ran down the steps two at a time like a kid escaping from school, and Alan leant on the horn.

He didn’t go to the canteen for lunch for a while after that,
consciously depriving himself of a chance of meeting Caro, but also holding it in reserve, as something which he
could continue to look forward to as long as he didn’t let it happen. Then he met her leaving the building one afternoon.

“Hello!” she said. “Have you been ill? I haven’t seen you for ages.”

“No, just busy.”

She nodded and they stood awkwardly silent for a moment.

“Well, I’d better go –” she said. Her eyelids, he noticed again, were full, as if they were swollen. Her grey eyes were very clear and open. She was wearing red
dungarees.

“Wait – are you busy? Care for a drink before you go home?”

She shook her head. “It would be nice but I’ve got a meeting at six, I’m sorry –”

“What sort of a meeting?”

“Women’s Aid Support Group.”

“What’s that?”

“For a Refuge. For battered women.”

“Oh. Well – I’ll see you.”

“We could have a drink on Friday after work, if you’re free,” she offered.

“I’ll see,” he said ungraciously. “I’ll let you know.”

It was not what he intended, to arrange a meeting.

But on Friday morning he enquired the way to her office and, finding it empty, left a note on the desk. “Rose & Kettle, 5.30? Alan.”

She was sitting there when he arrived, with a pint of beer on the table before her. He apologized and made a crack about women usually being late.

“Rubbish.”

“They are. Most women are habitually late.”

She shook her head.

“Well all the women I’ve met are. My mother’s always hours late for everything.” He was conscious of not mentioning his wife and wondered whether he would.

“Well it’s probably because she’s got too much to do and doesn’t get enough help from her family. Or because she’s ner–nervous and insecure, and afraid of
having to sit alone or sustain a conversation alone.”

“How can you sustain a conversation alone? You mean, like you were doing till I arrived?”

She pulled a face and made the now familiar gesture of shaking her head back, out of his mockery. He told himself that he didn’t like her shapeless hairy jumper. But when she picked up
her drink her wrist sliding out the wide sleeve looked so slender and fragile that, ridiculous impulse, he wanted to clasp his fingers round it and help her raise the glass.

“Why are you so skinny?”

She shrugged. “Why not? Why do you make so many offensive personal comments about me?”

“You can’t accuse me of being sexist, anyway; if I was sexist I would try to flatter you. Why do you have your hair cut so short?”

“I like it like this,” she said simply, “Why do you wear yours short?”

Gradually the tension between them eased, and the conversation began to spark and flow of its own accord (oiled, perhaps, by beer). He was suddenly curious about everything about her, her
house, friends, family, past. He had never met anyone who seemed so singular. When she had described her household she asked him, “Do you live alone?”

There was a fractional silence.

“No. I live with my wife and three children.” He watched her face carefully.

“Oh. I didn’t know you were married.” She said it simply, without any emotion. He could not tell if she was hiding a reaction, or if she simply had none. “How old are
your children?”

They started to talk about children. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter to her that he was married. Perhaps nothing would happen anyway. Perhaps she hadn’t imagined anything would.
Perhaps Robinson had been right about her. Alan suddenly felt that he didn’t know the rules. He could not predict what was going to happen. He found himself talking about the children in
ridiculous detail. She listened with her head bent, the warm furry top of her head tilted towards him. They had had quite a few drinks. Suddenly she looked at her watch.

“God, I’ve got to go – I said I’d be in for supper.”

“Can I give you a lift?”

“Well I’m on my bike.”

“I can give your bike a lift too, if you like.”

“I – OK – if it fits.”

Outside suddenly it was cold and dark and very quiet, and the conversation they had been cocooned in fell away, leaving them naked. Caro ran across the street to the car park, and unlocked
her bike from the attendant’s hut. The car park was empty.

“It makes it seem ridiculously late, doesn’t it?” she said nervously into the silence.

“It’s only half-past eight.”

There was another cold silence as they manoeuvred the bike to rest in the boot, unlocked the car and got in. He started the engine.

“Which way?”

Caro described the route then sat back in the seat, hugging her jacket round her.

They were each disappointed – almost angry, with the other. They drove to the Red House without speaking again. Alan got out and helped her unload her bike, and she said, “Thanks
for the lift.”

He nodded curtly, then drove away without smiling.

Caro parked her bike in the hall and leaned against the wall for a minute, before going into the kitchen.

Clare was in the kitchen, washing up.

“Hello. We’d given you up.”

“Is there anything to eat?”

“Of course. Isn’t there always, in this haven of domesticity? Sit down.”

Caro sat at the table and Clare removed a heaped plate from the oven and placed it in front of her.

“Oh God.”

“Well that’s nice. Here I am, slaving over a hot stove to provide you with nourishing victuals two hours late, and all you can say is –”

“All right, all right. I’m deeply grateful, Clare. But it is yesterday’s cauliflower cheese, warmed up, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes. I put some more cheese in it.”

“Oh good. Wonderful.”

“You’re drunk.”

“How can you tell?” Caro began to eat, pulling a face as she did so.

“It makes you more caustic.”

“Like you, you mean.”

“Possibly.” Clare emptied the bowl and sat down, drying her hands.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Tell me all.”

“Nothing to tell. I went for a drink after work.”

“With?”

“With a man. An architect. He gave me a lift home.”

“You could have invited him in for some warmed-up cauliflower cheese.”

“He’s got dinner, a wife and three children waiting for him at home.”

“Ah.”

Caro filled her mouth with cauliflower and chewed stolidly while Clare watched her.

“D’you like him?”

There was a pause.

“Yes.” She put down her fork and pushed the plate away. “I don’t know. It’s stupid. I’ve met him quite a few times – you know, at work. I didn’t
– I didn’t think –”

“What?”

“I didn’t think he would turn up for a drink tonight. And I wanted him to.”

“Does he live with his wife?”

“Most married men do, don’t they?”

“All right, stupid. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be as gruesome as that.”

“It won’t be. I mean, he told me he was married. He wasn’t hiding it. We spent ages talking about his kids. It’s not – I’m not – it won’t get
beyond the odd drink after work.”

“How d’you know?”

“Because it won’t. How can it?”

“Easily.”

“Look Clare –”

“Look yourself, Caro. D’you realize this is a record. This is the first time you have
ever
admitted that you fancy someone?”

“I don’t fancy him. And what about Martin, anyway?”

“You didn’t fancy him, you felt sorry for him. D’you feel sorry for this one?”

“No.”

“All right then.”

Caro fetched a packet of biscuits from the cupboard and opened them.

“Is Sue working?”

“Yes. Robin and Sylvie are in.”

“They’re quiet.”

“They’re watching telly.”

After a pause Caro spoke slowly. “I do like him. It’s – it’s a strange thing. He’s very critical. I mean, he argues with everything I think. But it’s as if
– it’s not an argument exactly, it’s more as if he wants to test – I’m not sure, himself or me. He pretends to be – you know, charming, cynical – but
there’s a – a crack in his shell – not his shell but his manner; underneath he’s open-minded, really open to everything – as if he still doesn’t know what the
world’s like.”

Clare groaned. “You want to mother him.”

“No.”

“Well you’ve just described a child, if he doesn’t know what the world’s like.”