This is serious, Nicklin thought strickenly. I’m supposed to be immune to this kind of irrationality.
He tried to decide what it was about her that had had such a devastating effect on him. She was about thirty, somewhere close to his own age, and he decided at once that she was not at all beautiful. Her face was squarish and unremarkable, with eyelids that seemed heavy and druggy; her mouth was wide, with an upper lip that was much fuller than the lower, almost as if it had been swollen by a blow. She was tall and black-haired, and her body—beneath the black sylkon blouse and taut black trousers—was slim and athletic, looking as though it had been pared down by exercise rather than dieting. She wore a flat black stetson instead of the standard coolie-style sun-hat, a flourish which indicated that the ensemble had been consciously chosen to create a certain effect. Nicklin was not sure what the effect was meant to be in terms of fashion, but he knew that for him it worked—the thought of unbuttoning the blouse actually made him feel weak at the knees.
“You must go and help your uncle, of course,” the woman said, “but perhaps you’ll come back and listen to Corey when you’re not so pressed for time. He really has something of great importance to say.”
“I’ll certainly give it serious thought.”
“That’s wonderful. By the way, my name is Danea.”
“Mine’s Jim,” Nicklin said, deeply thrilled by the realisation that there had been no need for the woman to give him her name. “Jim Nicklin, and I’ve just been thinking…”
He glanced at the people sitting and standing nearby, who were beginning to look around at him with curiosity or resentment because the conversation was an unwelcome distraction. He pointed at his ear and then at an area of trampled grass which was at a remove from the audience but still inside the ring of pole-mounted speakers which were relaying Montane’s words to the outside world. Danea nodded and moved in the indicated direction on black, spike-heeled sandals. Nicklin grabbed at Zindee’s hand and followed.
“That’s better—there were too many decibels to compete against back there,” he said when they stopped walking. “Look, I’ve been thinking things over. It’ll soon be getting dark and there probably isn’t enough time to get any useful work in on the rock garden. I think I’ll just stay on here for a while and—” He paused, becoming aware that Zindee had gripped his wrist with both hands and was trying to drag him away.
“Jim,” she whispered fiercely. “Jim!”
Danea looked down at her in a friendly manner. “Is this your daughter?”
“No!” Nicklin realised he had put too much emphasis into the denial. “No, I’m not married. This is my friend Zindee. We were going to have us a sundae—on the way to my uncle’s place, that is.”
“Hello, Zindee,” Danea said. “Don’t worry about getting that sundae. We all know how important sundaes are, and I’m sure Jim didn’t mean that terrible thing he said about staying on here.” She raised her gaze and her eyes locked with Nicklin’s. “After all, he can come back here at any time.”
“Yes.” Nicklin nodded vigorously as, annoyingly, Zindee redoubled her efforts to pull him off his feet. “I’ll do that. I’ll certainly do that.”
“Well, we’ll see you then.” Danea smiled at him, and he saw that her teeth were perfect, and that when she smiled the heaviness left her eyes, making them lively, star-centred and bold. The tremulous feeling returned to his knee joints. He raised his free hand in a farewell gesture and allowed Zindee to haul him away in the direction of Mr Chickley’s ice-cream parlour.
“Why didn’t you answer Danea when she said hello to you?” he demanded as soon as they had walked far enough to gain some privacy.
“You were doing enough talking for both of us,” Zindee replied, the set of her tiny chin showing that she was furious with him. “And what was all that bullshit about an uncle and a rock garden?” The fact that she had not used her customary euphemism—male ox droppings—confirmed to Nicklin that he was really in trouble with her.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said lamely.
“What I don’t understand is why you tell lies all the time. What makes you do it, Jim?”
That’s what I’d like to know, Nicklin thought, his cheeks beginning to grow hot with embarrassment. “You still haven’t said why you were rude to Danea.”
“She talked to me like I was a kid. Sundaes are important. Huh!”
Nicklin remained silent until they had reached the edge of the common, crossed Coach-and-Four Lane and taken up good window seats in Chickley’s. The place was quite narrow, but it extended a long way back from the street and had a glittering chrome-and-glass counter right across the inner end. Fat Mr Chickley was proud of having designed the period decor himself, even though there was some uncertainty about which period he had been aiming at. Clumps of coloured neon strips broke out here and there among the pseudo-Victorian gaslights on the walls. There were only a few customers in the twin rows of booths, presumably because of the rival attraction of Montane’s meeting.
While Zindee was up at the counter placing her complex order he took stock of himself and was not surprised to find that his hands were slightly unsteady. What had happened to him out there on the common? By inviting the woman to move to a quieter place he had, by his standards of behaviour, been making a pass at her—and he had never before behaved that way with a stranger. The unsettling thing, however, was that she had known he was making the pass and had continued to give him positive signals. No local woman would have responded to an advance from him in that way.
He was well aware that, as well as having the reputation of being ineffectual and eccentric, he was suspected of homosexuality by most people in Orangefield. He could have earned the esteem of many men, and probably of quite a few women, by being seen visiting certain homes in the town where the lady of the house had fallen back, so to speak, on an ancient means of earning a living. The main reason he had not given those houses any business was that he was an intensely private person, and did not like the idea of the town gossips knowing the exact dates on which he had found it necessary to relieve biological pressures. He therefore restricted himself to those occasions when he was over in Weston Bridge buying books or machine parts.
It was quite some coincidence, he decided, that the only woman ever to blitz him in such a way was also just about the first ever to respond encouragingly to his show of interest. As a result, there was nothing else in the world that he wanted more than to be with Danea. That was why he had lied about the rock garden in front of Zindee—she had ceased to register on his senses, she had effectively ceased to exist. And, right now, the thought that but for her intrusive presence he could still have been talking to Danea was inspiring him with resentment towards the child.
“Here we go,” Zindee said, arriving at the table with two imposing confections in tall glasses balanced on a tray. “Just look at them! Feast your eyes, Jim! How’s that for a vision of paradise?”
“Not bad.”
“Not bad!” As she sat down it was apparent from Zindee’s expression and manner that she had been restored to good humour. “Peasant! Philistine! Have you no appreciation for genuine works of art?”