"Adey'll never let us forget this," Dave said.
"In that case, we'd better get one back at him."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Let's go home."
"It's Saturday tomorrow."
"True." "It's a great weather forecast — fancy going for a jog with tMe others?"
"Good idea. Bring your kit."
"Have you rung her yet?"
"Who?"
"You know who."
"Umm, yes, but she wasn't in."
I had a big fillet of cod for tea, done under the grill with melted cheese on top, accompanied by new potatoes and petits pois. For pudding it was semolina and chopped banana. When you live alone there's a temptation to neglect yourself, eat junk food, but I try to take care. You are what you eat, as the bluebottle said to the dung beetle.
I rang Rosie afterwards, to undo the lie I'd told Sparky, and she wasn't in, just like I'd said. Except, when I put the phone down, I wished she had been in. I had a long soak in the bath and watched a video of Band of Brothers that one of the crew had loaned me. In under three weeks I had to produce two paintings for the show, but I had no ideas what to make them. I spent an hour looking at art books — Paul Klee, Picasso and Kandinsky — wishing I had their flair and originality. Whatever I produced, it would only be a pale imitation.
It was late when I rang Rosie again, but now I was resolved to speak to her. Sophie's postcard still lay alongside my phone, and I doodled on it as the ringing tone warbled in my ear, filling-in the loops of her writing with red Biro. I switched to a blue pen as the phone in Rosie's house played its shrill monotonous music to the empty room, and replaced the receiver with mixed emotions. I was disappointed she wasn't there but now I knew how my paintings would look. I went into the garage and painted one piece of board bright blue and the other yellow. Reading in bed is an art I've never mastered, but it was only poetry. I took the New Oxford Book of English Verse and Philip Smith's 100 Best-Loved Poems to bed with me.
Seven of us had a Saturday morning jog: five doing an easy four miles and two hard men galloping round the six-mile route. It was a bright sunny morning filled with the promise of a hot day. I'd gone in early and had an hour at the staff development reports before the others arrived. My intention was to stay on, after a shower, and finish them off, but someone suggested a pint in the Bailiwick and the temptation was too great. Then I saw the menu and smelled the cooking and decided to have lunch there, too. I went home feeling quite replete and mellow.
The boards I'd painted were four feet by three. I took a water-colour pad and drew squares on it twelve inches by nine, which was one-sixteenth the size of the boards, and wrote pieces of verse, gleaned from the poetry books, across them in loopy, joined up writing, as if they were snatches of a letter. I wrote:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight and:
Remember me when I am gone away, Cone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay I did it all again, but this time I started writing one word into the first line and continued off the edge of the frame, to make them appear to be random pages of prose rather than pieces of verse. Then I filled in all the loops with different coloured fibre-tipped pens, so they looked like love letters someone had received and carelessly doodled all over, perhaps while speaking on the phone to another lover. I gave one letter some Mickey Mouse ears and made another into a Smiley face. Nobody at the show would recognise the hidden story behind the paintings, but perhaps Lizzie Browning and Chrissie Rossetti would have approved.
The next step was to transfer the writing on to the painted boards, but at many times the size, and this would be time-consuming. The enamel on the boards was dry but not hard, so I decided it would be better to leave them for another day. I made a mug of tea, found a couple of custard creams and fell asleep with the football on the telly.
I was awake again, planning the evening menu, when the phone rang.
"Charlie Priest."
"Hello Uncle Charles. It's me."
"Sophie!" One of those exploding birthday cakes went off inside me, with a great bang and a puff of smoke, and six dancing girls in silver lame costumes high-kicked down the hallway. "How are you?" I picked up the phone and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
"I'm fine. How are you?"
"Brilliant. Where are you speaking from?"
"I'm on a train. I've tried ringing home but nobody's in. Could you possibly pick me up at the station, please?"
"No problem. What time do you arrive?"
"Ten to seven in Leeds, but I'm not sure about the connection to Heckley."
I looked at my watch and did a quick calculation. "Don't bother hanging about for the connection, I'll pick you up in Leeds."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
We chatted for a few minutes until I said I'd better be on my way. My instinct was to ring Dave and Shirley to tell them that their beloved daughter was coming home, but it occurred to me that Dave might insist on collecting her himself, depriving me of that pleasure, so I didn't. It would be all the more of a surprise when I produced her on their doorstep. I had a quick shower and teeth-clean, changed my clothes and set off for the station.
They'd made some changes there. The tunnel under the lines was gone, replaced by a bridge that linked the platforms. I was early, but by the time I'd worked out which platform she would arrive at the train was due in. I stood near the ticket barrier, watching as the bridge disgorged gaggles of travellers who flashed their tickets to the disinterested clerk, wondering how much Sophie had changed since I last saw her.
As soon as she appeared at the top of the stairs my legs turned to spaghetti. She was wearing a short skirt, high heels and a blouse with a high collar. Mandarin, I believe it's called. A bag hung over her shoulder with a leather jacket looped through it, and she turned slightly sideways as she came down the steps, feeling for each one, as if afraid she might topple over. Lovely Sophie hadn't quite mastered the art of walking in four-inch stilettos. She saw me and waved.
"You look sensational," I said, pecking her on the cheek. She was wearing Mitsouko, by Guerlain. The only perfume I recognise and one that brought back memories that I didn't need. Not then or at any other time.
"You don't look bad yourself, Uncle Charles," she replied.
I just stared at her, happy as a sandboy, and said: "Huh!"
"I've been reading about you in the papers."
"It's not true. I never touched her." She wouldn't let me take her bag as we wandered out of the concourse into the gloom of the evening. In the car I said: "Hungry?"
"Mmm, a bit." She drew her bare legs under the seat and tipped her knees in my direction.
"Nice suntan," I said.
"Thank you."
"Cap Ferrat?"
"That's right."
"With all the old folks. Will a pizza be OK?"
"Lovely!"
"Right. I'll show you that sophistication exists outside the hallowed groves of Oxbridge."
It was only a short drive to Park Square, where Terence Conran has one of his restaurants. The furnishings are art deco, the waiters and waitresses look as if they come from central casting and the pizzas are the only ones I've ever had that I could honestly say I'd enjoyed. Sophie beamed her approval, and that was good enough for me. We had a glass of wine each and she told me about Cap Ferrat and Cambridge over our quattro stag-gioni and pepperoni with black olives. Her blouse was made from a heavy silk material, embroidered with dragons and pagodas, and when I admired it she said it was a present from China. The pearls for buttons were in pairs, close together, and the high collar and her piled-up hair emphasised her height. Halfway through the meal, after she'd called me Uncle Charles for the tenth time, I raised a disapproving finger and said: "A ground rule."