That Man Simon (10 page)

‘This is Polly,’ Simon said. ‘Polly, this is Miss Shannon.

She lives next door to our new house in the country, and you’ll see her at school next week. She teaches the smallest children.’

The child had excellent manners. She slid off her chair and held out a small thin hand.

‘How do you do?’ she said, with touching formality. She did not smile.

‘You’ll have tea with us, won’t you, Jenny?’ Simon asked.

‘Polly, get the bacon out of the fridge, and cut the rind off some more rashers.’ To Jenny, he added, ‘Come and leave your things in the living-room. We’re a bit cramped in here.’

In the other room, he closed the door and said, ‘Did Miss Trent tell you the whole story?’ Then, when Jenny nodded,

‘I expect you disapprove of this arrangement, but I couldn’t leave the poor little devil where she was.’

‘I don’t disapprove at all. I think it’s wonderful of you,’

she said impulsively.

He stared at her for a moment, his expression unreadable. She flushed slightly under his scrutiny, afraid she had sounded gushing.

Then he opened the door for them to return to the kitchen.

During the meal, Polly never spoke unless Simon or Jenny spoke to her. It was impossible to tell whether she was listening to their conversation. She kept her eye on her plate, and looked up for a moment, when they addressed her. She was very thin and pale and plain, with dark hair worn in a short, untidy plaited ponytail, and she had recently lost her two front milk teeth which gave her a slight lisp.

Jenny’s heart went out to her. She was always strongly drawn to children who were plain or shy or nervous, and this child aroused a special compassion in her.

After the meal, Simon washed the dishes, Jenny dried them, and Polly put them away.

‘Shall I go to bed now, Uncle Simon?’ she asked, when they had finished.

‘Yes, but you can read for a while if you like,’ he said, ruffling her hair.

‘She’s pretty bright for her age,’ he told Jenny, after the child had gone off to the bathroom.

They were in the living-room when Polly appeared in pyjamas and a dressing gown to say good night. Simon went to tuck her into bed.

When he came back, he said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t run you home, because I can’t leave her alone.’

Was it a hint for her to go? Jenny wondered. She glanced at her watch. ‘No, of course not. I’ll catch the seven o’clock bus.’ She stood up to put on her raincoat.

Helping her into it, he said, ‘There is one thing you could do for me, if it wouldn’t be too much of a nuisance. Polly hasn’t had any new clothes this summer, and her last year’s things are much too small for her now. She needs kitting out before she starts school, but it’s a bit outside my field.’

‘I’d be glad to help, if you can leave it until Saturday morning. I’ll come and collect her about ten, if that’s all right?’

‘Yes, fine. It’s very good of you.’ The way he smiled took the edge off the hurt she had felt when he had seemed to want her to leave.

‘Till Saturday then. Good night, Simon. Do ring up if there’s anything I can do in the meantime,’ she said, at the door.

‘Bless you. Good night, Jenny.’

On Friday evening, James telephoned.

‘I’m fetching Mother back from the nursing home tomorrow morning. Will you come with me?’ he asked.

‘Oh, James, I can’t, I’m afraid.’ She explained why not.

‘I see. Well, come round and see her in the afternoon.’

‘I’m not sure what time I’ll get back, James. And I expect she’ll be tired after the drive. It might be better if I popped round on Sunday, I think.’

‘Oh, all right,’ he agreed, in a disappointed tone.

They talked for a few more minutes, and then Jenny rang off, feeling guilty and miserable, and yet excited because in thirteen hours’ time she would see Simon again. She knew now that she was strongly attracted to him. Since that moment of sickening dismay when she had thought he was married, it had been impossible to pretend that she was only interested in him as a newcomer to the village.

But she also knew that she was being a fool. It was an attraction, nothing more. How could it be? If she had any sense, she would stamp it out before it got worse. After tomorrow’s shopping expedition, she should avoid seeing Simon. She should try not to think about him. It would be more difficult now that Polly had come on the scene, but it could still be done. It had to be.

Travelling into the city on the bus the following morning, Jenny was firmly resolved that, if Simon asked her to lunch, she would refuse. She would deliver Polly back to the flat, and then she would leave and catch the bus home.

But she had not bargained for Simon accompanying them shopping. And when she realized this was his intention, she had a sinking feeling that her will power was going to fail her.

‘Wouldn’t you rather get on with some work?’ she suggested, before they left the flat.

‘Will I be in the way?’ Simon inquired, raising an eyebrow.

‘No, of course not. I just thought you might be bored.

Most men loathe traipsing round shops.’

‘Do they? Well, I can always slope off for a drink if I do get bored,’ he said easily.

It took them all morning to buy the clothes the child needed because it was late in the year to buy children’s summer things and stocks were getting low.

Polly submitted patiently, but without much interest, to having dresses tried on her.

At half past twelve, Simon suggested it was time for a meal. And, as they still had to buy some sandals and gym shoes, Jenny could not avoid lunching with them.

While she and Simon were having coffee and Polly was finishing a sundae, Jenny — hoping she was not dropping a brick — said, ‘Polly, do you like having a ponytail, or do you think it might be a good idea to have your hair cut short for the summer?’

‘Oh, could I?’ The first sign of real interest showed in the child’s face. ‘I always used to have it short when Mummy-’

She broke off suddenly.

‘Then we’ll see if we can get it cut this afternoon, shall we?’ Jenny said quickly. ‘And we’d better get you a pair of jeans for playing in the garden when you come to the new house.’

‘We’ll run you home and then Polly can see the house,’

Simon said, beckoning the waitress for the bill.

Outside the hairdresser’s, he said he had some shopping of his own to do, and would also go and fetch his car and wait for them on the nearest car park.

Polly looked much nicer with her hair cut short and hiding her rather large sticking-out ears.

‘Aunt Monica made me have a ponytail. She said it was less trouble,’ she confided to Jenny. ‘But I couldn’t do it very well myself, and nor could Uncle Simon.’

When they joined Simon in the car park, he gave Polly a couple of new books he had bought for her.

‘This is for you, Jenny. A small return for all your help today.’ He gave her something in a brown paper bag.

Opening it, she remembered his apparently casual question during lunch whether there was a gramophone at the Rectory. His present was a long-playing record album in a shiny sleeve.

‘Oh, Simon, thank you! But you shouldn’t have bought anything for me. I helped for love,’ she said unthinkingly.

As soon as the words were out, a wave of vivid colour suffused her face. Of all the inept remarks...

Mercifully, Simon had switched on the engine and appeared not to notice her embarrassment.

‘I hope you like Nat King Cole,’ he said, edging the car out of the rank.

‘Yes ... yes, I do, very much. It’s terribly kind of you.’

All the way home, she was intensely aware of his nearness, and it was an effort of will not to steal glances at him, or to watch his lean strong hands resting lightly on the wheel. She remembered the afternoon she had dropped into his arms from the oak tree, and her heart began to thump and her throat felt tight.

As they approached the village, she said abruptly, ‘Could you drop me off on the green, please? I promised to call on someone on my way home.’

When he stopped the car, she turned to the child in the back. ‘Good-bye, Polly. I’ll see you at school on Monday.

Good-bye, Simon. Thank you again for the record.’ Then she slipped quickly out of the car, and hurried across the grass towards the Langdons’ house.

When James opened the door, his face lit up.

‘Jenny! Come in. We’re just going to have tea. Hello, what’s this? Been splashing your money about?’ He spotted the record and took it from her to see what it was. ‘I thought you only bought classical stuff?’

‘Not always. How is your mother?’

‘Come and see.’ He led her through to the pleasant room which overlooked the garden.

Mrs. Langdon was basking in the afternoon sun on a daybed near the open French windows.

‘Oh, it’s you, Jenny. How nice. You can’t imagine how bored I’ve been, shut up in the nursing home for two weeks and not allowed to do a thing, not even sewing. Come and sit down and tell me all the latest gossip. James never hears half what goes on.’

After they had had tea, James said, ‘Let’s play your new record.’

‘No!’

James and Mrs. Langdon stared at her in surprise.

Jenny, who was as startled as they were by the sharpness of her tone, flushed and bit her lip.

‘Yes ... if you like,’ she amended awkwardly. ‘But it will take rather a long time and I ought to be getting home.’

‘Will you be okay for a quarter of an hour if I walk up as far as the Rectory, Mum?’ James asked.

‘Of course, dear. I’ll have a little snooze. You don’t have to stand over me every minute of the day, you know,’ Mrs.

Langdon said wryly.

Walking to the Rectory, James said suddenly, ‘Is it because of Mother that you aren’t sure about marrying me?’

‘No, of course not. Why should it be?’ she said, puzzled.

‘Well, she’d be living with us, and I thought you might not care for the idea of having a mum-in-law breathing down your neck. I know you get on all right now, but it might be different if you were living in the same house.’

‘Your mother has nothing to do with it. I’m very fond of her, and I’m sure she’d be an ideal mother-in-law.’ She stopped and turned to him. ‘Listen, James, I know it isn’t fair to keep you on tenterhooks indefinitely, but I just can’t answer you now. Give me until ... until your birthday.’

‘That’s not till the middle of August,’ he said, frowning.

‘I know. But I promise I’ll have made up my mind by then. I swear it. Please, James.’

Jenny did not play the Nat King Cole record, nor did she put it in the box with her other records. She put it on top of her wardrobe where it would be out of the way and she could — she hoped - forget about it.

And, in the following fortnight, she made a determined effort not to think of Simon at all. It was not easy, with Simon’s niece at school, and Simon’s house to be seen from her bedroom window.

The outside of the house was finished now and, though local opinion was still strongly opposed to it, Jenny found she liked it. The long south-west wall, overlooking the garden, was made up of a series of double-glazed picture windows with sliding doors in the central section opening on to a broad stone-flagged terrace. The front of the house, on the road side, was faced with cedar boarding and panels of local grey and white flints. When the last of the builder’s lorries had left, a three-barred gate had been put up in the gap in the hedge and painted white, with the name Flint House, in black, on the top bar.

One afternoon, during a handwork class, Jenny was giving Polly some help with a clay model of a cat, when the little girl said, ‘We’re moving to our lovely new house tomorrow, Miss Shannon.’

‘Are you, Polly? What fun. Has your uncle found someone to lock after you both?’

‘Yes, a lady called Mrs. Rose. She’s nice. I like her. She looks a bit like Mrs. Tiggywinkle. She has twinkly eyes, and laughs all the time. She and Uncle Simon are going to the house in the morning with the furniture van, and then Uncle Simon’s coming back for me after school.’

‘Well, you’d better go to bed early tonight with such an exciting day tomorrow.’ Jenny moved away.

There was a faint crease between her brows as she bent to admire another child’s painting of a seaside scene.

Presently she returned to Polly and said, ‘It would save your uncle fetching you if you went home on the bus with me tomorrow, Polly. In fact we might as well go home together every day. It can’t be very convenient for your uncle to fetch you from school each afternoon as he has been doing up to now. Mention it to him tonight, will you?’

After all, such an arrangement was common sense in the circumstances, she thought to herself. It need not involve her in any contact with Simon.

Next morning, during the milk break, Polly delivered a note to her.

Dear Jenny, she read when she had opened it, It’s very good of you to offer to bring Polly home. See you tonight.

Simon.

‘Aren’t you coming in to see it?’ Polly asked, when they reached the new house that afternoon. Her thin little face was flushed with excitement.

‘Not today, dear. Later perhaps, when you’re properly settled in. See you tomorrow. ’Bye.’ Jenny walked briskly on to the Rectory before the child’s obvious disappointment and her own curiosity should weaken her resolution.