‘Poor Rose,’ I said, gouging bread along the grooves of my cocquille shell, soaking up the last traces of sauce, ‘she needs a nice millionaire in shining armour.’
‘She needs a kick up the arse,’ said Ace. ‘Any millionaire would be bled white in a matter of months. Solvency’s a question of attitude not income. She’s having a terrible effect on Maggie too. In a way they compete. Maggie sees Rose getting off with half Westmorland, and can’t see why she shouldn’t do the same. The sooner Jack gets her into that house the better.’
‘She ought to have a baby.’
‘Of course she should. Give her something to do.’
‘Have they been trying?’
‘They’re being extremely trying at the moment,’ said Ace. ‘I want to knock their heads together. D’you want some pudding?’
‘No thanks. Just coffee. If she had her own baby,’ I said, ‘she’d be less jealous of Lucasta.’
Ace filled up my glass.
‘You get on all right with Lucasta, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but I’m not her step-mother. She’s sweet, Lucasta, but she’s learnt to be diplomatic. She can beam at Jack with one eye, and freeze Maggie with the other — all at the same time. And although I think Jack’s lovely. .’
‘I gathered that, several times,’ said Ace.
‘Oh shut up,’ I said. ‘Not in that way. I know he’s your brother and all that, but he’s terribly insensitive towards Maggie. Always putting her down. I couldn’t cope with it.’
‘I hope to Christ they don’t break up,’ said Ace.
‘To lose one wife looks like misfortune,’ I said, ‘but to lose two looks like carelessness. It’s difficult to get anyone to take you seriously if you’ve got two marriages under your belt.’
‘You’re a perceptive child sometimes, aren’t you?’
‘Not about myself,’ I said, gouging crosses in the brown sugar.
There was a pause.
Ace shot me a speculative glance. ‘Pendle’s the one who worries me really. He’s heading for a crackup if he’s not careful.’
‘Ah Pendle,’ I said, tearing out the soft inside of my roll and kneading it into pellets. ‘He only went after me because I looked like Maggie, and he was trying to kick the habit.’
‘You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.’
Suddenly I found I did.
‘He took me back to his flat, and tried to pull me the first night we met. We’d been to a party. I was a bit tight, but when the crunch came he stopped in the middle. He simply couldn’t bring himself to.’
I felt my face going very hot, and took another slug at my wine.
‘It was awful, as though he really hated touching me, like a person making himself pick up toads. I think I knew it was no good for ages. But I’ve always been one to go on watering plants long after they’re dead. I knew I was living in a fool’s paradise.’
‘Better than no paradise at all,’ said Ace. ‘He must have given you a hard time. I’m sorry.’
‘Wasn’t much fun, but in a way it was such a nightmare during, that afterwards hasn’t been nearly so bad. Like the Red Queen pricking her finger — pain first, prick afterwards.’
‘Pricks don’t seem to have had much to do with it,’ said Ace. ‘I’m going to have a large brandy. Would you like one too?’
Later we wandered for miles along the shingle, the waves booming, the seagulls circling and complaining overhead. I suddenly looked at Ace — angular features softened, black hair slightly ruffled, suntan whipped up by the wind — and my stomach disappeared.
‘You’re very quiet,’ he said. ‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Oh,’ I stammered, ‘I was just thinking how nice it is, and how I don’t want to go back to work and my horrid old boss.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Quite old,’ I said without thinking. ‘He must be thirty,’ and then realized what I’d said. ‘I mean I only called him my old boss, like some people call their wives their old woman — when they’re not old, I mean.’
‘I see,’ said Ace dryly.
When we got back to the car, we looked out to sea for a minute. Please God, make him kiss me, I prayed. I’ll behave well for at least a year. God wasn’t listening. Ace lit a cigarette.
‘I came here with Elizabeth,’ he said, ‘not long before she died. It was a bitterly cold day. She used to feel the cold. I kept giving her pairs of gloves, but she always lost them. She had a whole drawer full of single gloves because she couldn’t bear to throw away anything I’d given her.’
I found my eyes filling with tears.
‘Does it still hurt — all the time?’
‘It gets better — then one has terrible jabs like a war wound. It’s pretty good hell being a “widower”.’ I could feel him carefully putting quotes around the word. ‘Depression makes you lousy company. When you meet old mates you’re reminded of previous times when you were together. You avoid happily married couples — you can’t stand the togetherness. And you can feel yourself projecting your bitterness and indifference on to everyone else. However sympathetic people are, there’s something humiliating about disaster. You always feel yourself being pitied or patronized.’
The dark eyes were brooding beneath the thick brows. What a splendidly strong face he had. He was not at all like the person I first thought — much more complicated and, though he didn’t realize it, much more vulnerable.
‘One feels guilty, too, about forgetting.’
‘But you can’t give up women for good,’ I said.
‘I don’t — it’s been two years now. Casual affairs are all right. But when you’ve had the sort of thing Elizabeth and I had casual affairs aren’t really enough. On the other hand one feels guilty about becoming totally committed to someone else.’
He threw his cigarette out of the window and started up the car. It had suddenly got much, much colder. An apricot sun was firing the pine trees as we drove home. Some Pole was playing Chopin Nocturnes on the car wireless. Suddenly a black and white bird flashed across the road; it was a magpie. One for sorrow, two for joy. I looked frantically round for its mate. I’d had enough unhappiness recently, but there was no sight of another one.
‘Not too tired?’ he said.
‘I feel marvellous.’
‘We’ll stop soon for a drink.’
An hour later I sat in a happy stupor, drinking a huge dry martini.
‘Thank you for a heavenly day,’ I said.
Ace smiled. ‘It’s not over yet. The food’s good here. Would you like to stop for dinner?’
‘Oh, yes please,’ I said.
‘I’ll go and ring home.’ I was expanding like a flower. But my daydreams were rudely interrupted.
‘Afraid we’ve had dinner here,’ he said. ‘A couple of mates have turned up unexpectedly at home — arrived just after we left, and been cooling their heels waiting ever since — so we’d better go back. We can all eat out locally. I told Jack to book a table.’
We drove as fast as possible along the narrow roads, headlamps lighting up stone walls hung with rusty bracken and fern. The wireless was playing Schubert’s C Minor Symphony, and as various sections of the orchestra stalked catlike through the second movement, I tried to fight off bitter disappointment. No cosy tête-à-tête now, just Mulhollands scrapping all through dinner, with two more of Ace’s friends clamouring for his attention, and no doubt having conversations about politics ten feet above my head. Ace suddenly seemed very uptight too. The lovely intimacy we’d built up during the day was disintegrating like an iced lolly at the end of its stick. It was all the fault of that bloody magpie.
‘Look,’ Ace said.
‘Are they…?’ I began. We both started speaking at exactly the same time.
‘No, you go on,’ we both said.