What Men Say (2 page)

The dark woman and her friends were at least twenty-five yards away and it was only when one of them turned in her direction that Loretta realized they
were not all strangers after all. The woman in the green skirt or shorts was Janet Dunne, an art historian who lived in Park Town; Loretta had been placed next to her at Bridget's final dinner party in Woodstock Road. A couple of weeks later she had seen Janet on “The Late Show,” taking part in a very solemn discussion on the work of a sculptor whose one-man show, consisting almost exclusively of nude male torsos, had been threatened with prosecution for obscenity. Janet's attempt to lighten the proceedings with a joke—something about the penis not standing up well to such close scrutiny—had so infuriated another of the guests, a thuggish Glaswegian poet, that he leaped to his feet and hurled abuse at her in an increasingly impenetrable Scots accent. Janet's spirited attempt to defend herself, on the grounds that the sculptures had more to do with their creator's personal anxieties than art, had been drowned in the ensuing uproar and the item ended early. Loretta had begun writing a sympathetic note, including a variation on the old joke about the penis being only a phallic symbol, but the phone had rung or someone had come round—whatever the reason for the interruption, she had never sent it.

She peered up and down the garden, hoping to spot Sam Becker and tell him she'd had enough of his hamburgers and wanted to circulate, but she could not see him. She guessed he was in the house, uncorking more bottles—people seemed to be drinking freely, perhaps because of the heat—or getting the puddings out of the big fridge she had observed in the kitchen. There was no sign of Bridget, either, even though she had been helping to dish out food the last time Loretta looked. She wondered, again, whether Bridget was all right; she had been upstairs when Loretta arrived that morning, taking no part in the party preparations and appearing
only as the first guests drove into the yard so there was no chance of speaking to her alone. Loretta had been slightly miffed by this until Bridget stopped to greet her, lifting a pale, tired face which suggested the party was too much for her at this stage in her pregnancy. Either that, Loretta concluded, or she'd had a row with Sam.

The latter thought came into her head not because of any evidence that Bridget and Sam were on bad terms—on the contrary, he had seemed solicitous and fond as the party began—but because Loretta was feeling uncomfortable about her own relations with Bridget. Their last meeting, over lunch at a wine bar in Little Clarendon Street a couple of weeks before, had been marred by a rare argument; the episode was so unusual, and so unsettling, that she had tried to explain it away as a side effect of Bridget's condition. Bridget had arrived in an odd mood, joking with the waiter as she ordered mineral water instead of her usual glass of red wine and entertaining Loretta with a satirical account of the antenatal class she and Sam had recently attended, but she looked and sounded preoccupied. Loretta, still unsure of the new boundaries imposed by her friend's marriage, was trying to think of a tactful way of asking what was wrong when the waiter returned with their main courses, fish cakes for Bridget and kedgeree for Loretta.

Bridget cheered up at once, asking Loretta's advice on names for the baby as she finished her first mouthful of food. “I mean, I don't want to land her—him—with something that's going to sound dated or embarrassing.” Bridget listed some of her own wilder inspirations, then pulled a face in answer to Loretta's question about Sam's preferences. “Howard, can you imagine it? Howard Becker—”

“Becker? You mean—it's going to have Sam's name?” Loretta was too astonished to conceal her reaction.

“Well, I don't think those double-barrelled things really work . . .” Bridget hacked at her fish cake, avoiding Loretta's eye.

“Neither do I, but what's wrong with Bennett?”

“I haven't been pressured into it, if that's what you're thinking,” Bridget said crossly, making Loretta think she had. “It's all very well theorizing, but when you're actually faced with . . . If you must know, it means a lot to Sam.”

This, from a woman who had been outraged by her younger sister's decision to change her name when she got married the previous year, was more than Loretta could bear. “I'm sure it does. I'm sure it's meant a lot to men throughout the ages, which is why—”

“Oh, for God's sake, Loretta, spare me the lecture. Can't you see it's personal?”

“And that isn't political, all of a sudden?”

They glared at each other, unused to confrontation and uncertain how to deal with it. When the waiter removed their plates, Bridget refused his offer of pudding and announced she had to dash, thrusting a ten-pound note into Loretta's hand to cover her share of the bill. They had spoken on the phone since, feeling their way back towards the old, easy companionship, but the sense of constraint had not entirely disappeared. Bridget's suggestion that Loretta arrive early at the party had raised her hopes of a quiet talk, but in the event she had spent the time in the kitchen, listening to Sam's enthusiastic description of his plans for the top floor of the house.

“The best woman.”

“Sorry?” Loretta looked up in surprise, realizing too
late that someone, a man who looked faintly familiar, was talking to her.

“We met at the wedding—you were the best woman. You made a great speech.”

“I'm glad you liked it. It didn't go down too well with Bridget's parents.”

“Older people often are traditional. You had a nice touch, livened the party up no end. That place they got married—it was the pits.”

Loretta smiled. The Oxford register office was a first-floor room in the Westgate Center, a dreary indoor shopping arcade, near a branch of C & A. It had slightly more charm, but not much, than a doctor's waiting room, and the guests hurried out after the ceremony to find themselves confronted with the frankly inquisitive stares of half a dozen middle-aged shoppers who had stopped to see the bride. Bridget, taking advantage of the unseasonally warm spring weather in a halter-neck dress and Loretta's gold Italian sandals, was an obvious disappointment and they soon drifted away. Her parents, whose pleas for a church wedding, a Pronuptia dress and bridesmaids in pastel polyester had been swept aside, were left to pose unhappily for photographs with their slightly pregnant daughter, her new American husband and Loretta. They were even denied the consolation of meeting Sam's mother, who lived in Boston and was unable to come to England at such short notice. Instead, she sent flowers and a conventionally worded telemessage.

“Christopher Caesar,” said the erstwhile wedding guest, holding out his hand. “I don't think we were introduced.”

“Loretta Lawson.” He had a lean, serious face, with high cheekbones and dark hair parted in the middle—good-looking in a very un-English way. Loretta would
not have been surprised to discover that he worked out at a gym and drank only mineral water.

“Bridget's talked about you,” he was saying. “You teach English, right?”

“Yes, but not at Oxford. And only part-time.” She hesitated, her cheeks growing warm. “The rest of the time I write books.” She felt uncomfortable talking about her writing, especially with strangers, so she added quickly: “I'm a lecturer at London University, one of the newer colleges. I have an office near the Post Office Tower, if you know where that is.”

“How'd you know Bridget?”

“Oh—” Loretta and Bridget had been in the same women's group around the time Loretta left her husband, a journalist called John Tracey. She was not normally reticent on the subject, but it occurred to her that she had no idea whether Sam knew about this bit of his wife's past, or how he would feel about it. “We've known each other for years,” she said vaguely, “it must be at least ten. What about you? I assume you're a friend of Sam's?”

“We work for the same company,” he said, and began to talk about a joint project between CES—Loretta had never quite got over her astonishment that the initials stood for Computo Ergo Sum pic—and the university engineering department.

She nodded politely from time to time, understanding enough about computers to work her own word processor and nothing more. Bridget, usually as technologically illiterate as Loretta, had developed a baffling interest in the subject in December, suddenly talking knowledgeably about macros, megabytes and even logic bombs; then she introduced Loretta to Sam, and all was explained. Christopher Caesar's account of ways to use computers to simulate aircraft wear and tear, instead of
destroying expensive engines, left Loretta terminally bored and she looked down, hiding a smile at this silent pun, then realized he had stopped speaking.

“Would you like a hamburger?” she asked quickly. “Everyone's allowed two, though there hasn't exactly been a rush . . . Shit!” The flat pink circles which had been sitting harmlessly on the grill last time she looked were now reduced to black, misshapen nuggets. An acrid smell hovered about them, a pungent combination of singed meat and fat-spattered charcoal.

“You know how to turn that thing down?”

“I suppose you just . . .” Loretta bent and fiddled with various knobs at the back of the barbecue. “This looks like the gas supply . . . yes, I've got it.”

“Why don't I take over for a while?” He picked up the fish slice and used it to lift the charred hamburgers onto a plate. “You look like you need a break.”

Loretta stared at him for a moment, then seized her bag and slid out from behind the table before he could change his mind.

“Whoa—just missed your dress.”

She turned and saw that she had almost collided with Stephen Kaplan, who was holding out a plastic cup.

“Stephen—thanks.” Flustered, she took the cup and sniffed the reddish-gold liquid inside. “What
is
this?”

“Some sort of fruit juice. Mango, passion fruit and persimmon—one of those unlikely combinations. They've run out of mineral water and I didn't think you'd want tap.”

“Really?” Loretta was surprised by this admission of the low quality of the local tap water. It was often cloudy and there had been several incidents of contamination since privatization, but she would not have expected Stephen to acknowledge either problem. “I thought you were all for privatization.”

“I am, but it's early days yet. You can't wipe out years of socialist neglect overnight.” He seemed on the verge of launching into a speech, then apparently thought better of it. “How's your book selling?”

“My book?”

“A biography, isn't it? Some authoress.”

Bridget had once claimed, when challenged by Loretta over her friendship with Stephen, that she liked his dry wit. Loretta had never seen any evidence of it, merely an ill-mannered tendency to mock anything he disagreed with. She reined in her irritation and said crisply: “Edith Wharton.”

“Of course. Jane's got some of her books but I can't say I've read them . . . Don't you think those green covers have become a bit of a cliché? I suppose you're getting lots of lovely royalties?”

“Not yet. Though the paperback is doing quite well.” Loretta's royalty statements so far had been a disappointment, but her literary agent assured her it was only because the system was slow to cough up. Loretta hoped she was right.

“You're doing another one, aren't you? Bridget said something about it, not a biography this time.”

In the distance Loretta saw Janet Dunne getting to her feet, brushing twigs from a pair of baggy green shorts and sliding her feet into sandals. Stephen only wanted to hear about her new book so he could make silly jokes about it; she flashed him a dismissive smile and began edging away. “Stephen, would you excuse me, there's someone I have to . . . Thanks for . . .” She held up the cup of exotic fruit juice, moving sideways so she did not see Sam Becker until he slipped a proprietorial hand under her left elbow.

“Loretta—you having a good time?” He was wearing wire-rimmed sunglasses, Ray-Bans she thought, and his
straight fair hair fell boyishly onto his forehead. The first time they met, six or seven months ago and in the depths of winter, this striking combination of blond hair and permanently tanned skin had made her think of the Beach Boys—not the balding, middle-aged men she had recently seen on television, but the carefree, party-loving surfers of the mid-sixties. She had recognized the incongruity of the comparison as soon as she made it, for Sam was in his early thirties, too young to have experienced the Summer of Love, and had no connections with the West Coast.

He was waiting for her reply. “Yes—lovely party,” she said formally, suppressing her annoyance over the hamburger stall.

Sam squeezed her arm. “Glad you could make it. It mattered to Bridget, you being here.”

Loretta bridled, disliking his habit of speaking on Bridget's behalf. “I haven't had a chance to exchange two words with her, as a matter of fact.” She thought of their brief meeting that morning, recalled Bridget's haggard appearance and suddenly felt in need of reassurance. “Sam—she is all right, isn't she? She looked—I thought she looked worn out.”

Sam frowned and thrust his hands into the pockets of his chinos. “There's some kind of a problem with her blood pressure. She has more tests on Tuesday.”

“What? I had no idea.”

Sam shrugged. “It was a routine check, she didn't have a clue anything was wrong. She's an elderly
prima gravida,
I guess we should've expected—”

“She's a what?”

“Her age,” Sam explained. “She's kind of on the old side for her first child. They told her to take it easy, I wanted to call off the party but . . . well, I guess she's
still trying to be Superwoman. Maybe you could talk to her? She was in the kitchen just now.”