Last Guests of the Season (6 page)

‘I saw her,' he told them, ‘going through the manuscripts of scholars with a pencil like a blazing sword. She sliced their prose into pieces, and handed it back to them with the smile of an angel …'

‘Please,' said Frances. Sitting away from the candles, at the opposite end of the dark polished table, she looked much more relaxed now, as though whatever had been wrong between them at the start of the evening had passed and could be forgotten. But she did not talk very much, and Robert from time to time felt, as she smiled, and served wild rice, red snapper, perfect salad, that she wasn't really listening very much, either. And although she and Oliver were unwaveringly polite to each other, although it was clear she admired him, that there were interests shared and tastes in common, their eyes did not often meet – not in the way his and Claire's met, all the time, without thinking about it. Every now and then Oliver asked her a question and had to ask it again: he made a joke of it, but he was obviously irritated.

Still. The food was as good as Robert could remember eating anywhere, though the helpings were much too small. Much. Ambrosial
crème brûlée
– made, it was disclosed, by Oliver – arrived in tiny dishes, and he still had a gap when they said their goodbyes, after coffee and brandy on the comfortable sofas.

Frances and Oliver came down to see them off: they stood on the doorstep with the light behind them, and as Robert and Claire drove away down the road Frances and Oliver waved, then turned back into the house, his arm round her shoulders and she looking up at him, as if everything between them were perfect.

‘Well,' said Claire immediately, ‘what did you think?'

‘About her? I liked her.'

‘And him? And them together?'

‘Who knows?' said Robert. ‘Who ever knows?' He reached forward and turned on the radio: late-night Bach embraced them. ‘Ah, that's better.'

‘A man with a definite outline,' said Claire, after a while. ‘A definite outline and a definite something. I found him a little alarming.'

‘Mmm. I did like her though. At least I think I did.' They drove past the clock tower, and up to the brow of the hill. The evening had grown much cooler, and the trees on either side rustled in a rising wind. ‘It's going to rain,' he said, and added, as they turned into their own road, ‘Something a bit –'

‘There was always something a bit about Frances.'

They were home. Thank God. ‘I'm starving,' he said, pulling up.

‘You can't be.' Claire found her key as they walked up the path and unlocked the door, whose red paint was kicked and scuffed from years of bikes and banging, calling out unnecessarily to the babysitter, ‘Hello, Barbara, it's us, we're back.'

Robert, after greetings, went through to the kitchen, and while Claire and Barbara stood chatting in the hall he shook cornflakes into a bowl and sat enjoyably at the table, pouring on milk and sugar, reading the cricket again, while Bach, on the kitchen radio, continued to soar about him. The front door closed.

‘I've had a thought,' said Claire, returning. She stopped, and looked at the cornflakes. ‘Blasphemy.' She pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Heresy. How can you?'

‘Sorry,' he said, folding back the sports pages. ‘Can't help it. What was the thought?'

She reached for the cornflakes and took a dry handful. ‘Portugal,' she said, munching. ‘We could see if they're free.'

‘Oh, no.' He stopped reading, and looked at her. ‘No, I don't think so. I really can't see it.'

‘We've got to find someone, haven't we? Who else is there? Anyway, it's years since we did anything with people we don't really know – it's a challenge.'

‘It's supposed to be a holiday.'

‘Let me just sound them out.'

Rain began to spatter at the window, the cat came shooting in through the cat flap. Portugal seemed unreal, and Bach made anything seem possible. Anyway, they were bound to be booked. ‘Oh, go on, then,' he said, returning to the test match. ‘She's your friend. All our friends are your friends. Go on, if it makes you happy.'

And now here they all were, and here was Robert, watching Oliver, long legs stretched out before him, long spare fingers turning a page. He had a strong face, almost a noble face – certainly it had qualities Robert knew were missing from his own undefined openness. A man with a definite outline, Claire had said. She had found him a little alarming. Why?

Robert was usually too busy for speculation. Also, he had been married to the same person for fifteen years and for almost eight had worked with more or less the same group of people. At home, Claire's friends drifted in and out, coming for lunch on Fridays, coming to pick up their children after school, coming for supper from time to time with their husbands, the only time he ever saw them. He could not think about many of these people, after all this time, with even a residual curiosity; neither did he, if the truth be told, feel much need for anyone, once he got home. He had always wanted a family, and now he had one it was enough.

At work, there were changes now and then, inevitably – people came and went in the office, sometimes in a flurry, and those who worked at the sharp end, running the sheltered homes, either left after six months or stayed for ever. On the whole, however, he did not have much to do with the sharp end, and on the whole life in the office went on much as usual: there were tensions, and sometimes rows, but they did not often involve him. That is to say, he did not allow them to.

Robert was by nature easygoing, a conciliator, a defuser of tension. He liked men, but preferred women, and the women in the office felt safe with him, and from time to time came and wept on his desk. Sometimes this was because of the frustration of work, and sometimes because of the frustration of living with difficult men. He listened, and took them out for consoling drinks in the lunch hour.

Across the table, a page in the folder was quietly turned. Robert, remembering the dinner party, the silences and irritations, thought that Oliver was probably difficult – and who knew about Frances? He also thought he was probably staring, drifting off in a steady gaze as he was apt to do on the tube, caught when the person opposite looked up and looked offended.

Up on the mountainside, the church clock struck once: half-past eight. He turned, and gazed out towards the village, catching sight of a bat flitting between the grapefruit trees. Dogs barked, and on the path from the main road that ran down past the garden he could hear conversation: two old men, walking slowly. He heard something else too, a sound remembered from last year: a motor bike, screeching up the steep unlit road. At night, to relieve the boredom of the village, with its single bar, those few young men remaining came up the side of the mountain on their bikes as if there were no tomorrow. Their engines had no silencers, and sliced through the darkness like chain saws, headlights careering wildly. There came now another, and then another, at intervals that led you to believe it had all gone quiet, until the next one split the air. Robert laughed, because if the noise was infuriating the timing was comical, like a cartoon fly, and Oliver looked up from his reading and smiled.

‘Does this go on all night?'

‘Intermittently.'

‘Doesn't anyone get killed?'

‘Probably.' He reached for the bottle again, and nodded towards the folder. ‘Found anything interesting?'

‘I've just been reading about the winter of'seventy-six – it seems that half the village died of flu. Remember reading that?'

‘Yes, I do. I should think winter here must be hell – it's getting cold in the evenings even now. You warm enough?'

‘Yes, thanks.' Oliver put the folder back on the table. ‘It also seems that all this eucalyptus planting is destroying the land, and that someone in'eighty-seven sighted three solid pages of birds.'

‘Creeps,' said Robert. ‘We've seen wagtails and sparrows. You're supposed to see kingfishers down by the river, but we never have.' He drank, wondering when the women were going to come out.

They'd eaten out here early,
en famille
for this evening, and sent the children packing soon afterwards. Claire and Frances were supervising baths for the boys, Jessica had gone to her own room, with her Walkman and her book. He turned in his chair and saw her now through the open doors across the other side of the sitting-room, lying on her side, thick tawny hair hooked back behind her ear, wherein an earpiece nestled. Her fingers were drumming to the beat on the open book: how could she read and listen at the same time? Sometimes he came back in the evenings and found her doing her homework plugged in like this.

‘All right, Jess?' he called, but she didn't hear him. There were footsteps along the wooden corridor, and someone went into the dining-room, switching on the lights. At once, there was a violent fizzing from the fuse-box above the terrace doors.

‘Shit,' said Claire distinctly.

Robert pushed back his chair and got up. ‘What's happened?' He went inside: the fuse-box sounded as if it were about to explode. Across the room, Jessica, oblivious, did not even look up. In the dining-room, Claire snapped off the lights and at once the fizzing and crackling faded.

‘Phew.' She came out of the dining-room and she and Robert peered up at the box, whose noises were now muted. But still there.

‘Everything all right?' asked Oliver, from the terrace.

‘Think so,' said Claire. ‘Must've overloaded it,' she said to Robert. ‘We'll have to be careful. I suppose this means we can only eat indoors by candlelight.'

Robert looked cautiously up at the box. ‘Did it make this noise last year? This sort of buzzing?'

‘I don't know. I can't remember. I think so, don't you?'

‘Yes,' he said doubtfully. ‘Have we got any candles, by the way?'

‘I think I saw one in a cupboard. Did you pack the torch?'

‘Does that mean you didn't?'

‘Yes. I mean no, I didn't.'

‘Oh. Oh, well. I expect it's okay as long as we remember. How're the boys?'

‘Fine. Frances is just saying goodnight – d'you want to go up? I'm going to make coffee.'

‘Right.' He looked out on to the terrace again. ‘Oliver? Coming up to say goodnight to Tom?'

Oliver shook his head. ‘Frances is up there, isn't she? We usually take it in turns.'

‘Oh. Okay.' Robert withdrew, a little taken aback. Turns? Even to say goodnight? He wandered off towards the corridor leading to the stairs, stopping at Jessica's open door. Her head was swaying from side to side; she looked up, saw him, and continued to sway. Might as well not be here at all, really, he thought, I'm just part of the furniture these days. He remembered, all of a sudden, Jessica at one and a bit, in a little blue sleeping suit with ducks on, staggering across the kitchen floor in their old flat, laughing, falling into his open arms to be scooped up and kissed all over, and he sighed. Oh well. He raised a hand, and she nodded almost imperceptibly; he left her to it, and went off to see the boys.

Frances was just approaching the top of the stairs as he rounded the corner; she was wearing the grey cotton trousers she'd worn at supper, but had pulled on a cardigan over her pale striped shirt. He saw, as she stood above him, that she was wearing earrings – perhaps she'd worn them at supper, but he hadn't noticed. They were silver, long and slender, and they swung in the light beneath her straight fair hair. She smiled down at him, waiting, and he smiled back, coming up the wooden treads, and forgot about Jess and the sudden pang.

‘Boys all right?'

‘Yes, they're just waiting for you.' She hesitated, her hand on a packet of cigarettes in her pocket. ‘I think Tom's pretty tired still.'

‘Don't worry,' said Robert; he had reached the landing, and stood aside for her. ‘I'm not about to stir them up. Goodnight, lights out, that's it.'

‘Well – see you downstairs, then.'

‘Claire's making coffee.'

‘Lovely.' She went lightly down the stairs in her canvas shoes, and he walked along the corridor, feeling lingering doubts about the holiday begin to evaporate. He stopped at the boys'room and put his head round the door.

‘Evening all.'

They were both lying on their pillows, Jack neatly on his side, facing the door, Tom on his back, his legs drawn up; he was looking at the ceiling, making little trilling sounds.

‘Everything to your satisfaction so far?'

‘Yes, thanks.' Jack was yawning, his eyes already beginning to close. Robert went over and kissed him. ‘Night, Jack, sleep tight.' He crossed to Tom. ‘Am I allowed to kiss you, too?'

Tom nodded, absently. ‘There's a spider up there.'

‘Is there?' Robert peered. ‘So there is, just a little chap. You're a good spotter.' He bent down and kissed him on rather wild hair. ‘I saw a bat just now.'

‘A
bat?'
Tom shot upright, and his head met Robert's chin with a crack. ‘Ouch! Ouch.' He rubbed his head; tears smarted in Robert's eyes. ‘A bat? Where? Why didn't you call us?'

‘Sorry.' Robert stepped back, his hand on his chin. ‘It was out by the terrace – I expect he'll come back. Settle down now, see you in the morning.'

But Tom was already out of bed. ‘Can I come down and see him? Please. Please?'

‘Well, I …' Robert floundered; then, mindful of both Frances and his chin – who knew what part of the body might come next in Tom's orbit? – he said firmly: ‘No. Not tonight. Stay up and look for him tomorrow – it's been a long day.'

‘Oh.' Two long-drawn-out notes of dissatisfaction.

Robert gently moved him towards the bed again. ‘Go on, in you go.' He switched off the light. ‘Sleep well.'

‘Leave the light on in the corridor, Dad,' said Jack.