They were sitting here listening to a man who had done four years' hard labour in a communist prison, been brutally treated, a painfully emotional tale, so that at times Reuben Sachs wept, explaining that it was because of 'the sullying and dirtying of the great dream of humankind', but what was being appealed to was their reason.
And that was why the faces of the people who had come to this evening's meeting, ' to hear the truth' , were expressionless, or even stunned, listening as if the tale did not concern them. For an hour and a half the emissary from ' the truth of the situation' talked, and then ended with a passionate appeal for questions, but no one said anything. As if nothing at all had been said, the meeting ended because people were getting up and having thanked Frances, under the impression that she was the hostess, and nodded to Johnny, drifted out. Nothing was said. And when they began talking to each other it was on other subjects.
Reuben Sachs sat on, waiting for what he had come to London for, but he might have been talking about conditions in medieval Europe or even Stone Age Man. He could not believe what he was seeing, what had happened.
Julia continued to sit in her place, watching, sardonic, a little bitter, and Andrew and Colin were openly derisive. Johnny went off, with some others, not looking at his sons or his mother.
The man next to Frances had not moved. She felt she had been right not to have wanted to come: she was being attacked by ancient unhappinesses, and needed to compose herself.
' Frances, ' he said, trying to get her attention, ' that was not pleasant hearing. '
She smiled more vaguely than he liked, but then saw his face and thought that there was one person there at least who had taken in what had been said.
‘I’m Harold Holman, ' he said. ‘But you don't seem to remember me? I was around a lot with Johnny in the old days... I came to your place when all our kids were small – I was married to Jane then.'
'I seem to have blocked it all off.'
Meanwhile Andrew and Colin were watching: the room was nearly empty now, and Julia was taking the miserably disappointed truth-bringer out and up to her rooms.
' Can I ring you?' Harold asked.
'Why not? But better ring me at The Defender.’ And she lowered her voice, because of her sons. ‘I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.'
'Right,' he said, and off he went. This had been so casual that she was only just taking it in that he was interested in her as a woman, for she had got out of the habit of expecting it. And now Colin came to ask, ‘Who 's that man?'
' An old friend of Johnny's – from the old days. '
‘What is he telephoning you about?'
‘I don't know. Perhaps we'll go and have a cup of coffee, for old times' sake,' she said, lying casually, for already that aspect of her self was re-emerging.
‘I’ll get back to school,’ said Colin, abrupt, suspicious, and he did not say goodbye as he went off to catch his train.
As for Andrew, he said, ‘I’ll go and help Julia with our guest, poor man, ' and left her with a smile that was both complicit and a warning, though it was doubtful he was aware of this.
A woman who has shut a door on her amorous self as thoroughly as Frances had, has to be surprised when suddenly it opens. She liked Harold, that was obvious, from the way she was coming to life, pulses stirring, animation seizing hold of her.
And yet why? Why him? He had got under her guard, all right. How very extraordinary. The occasion had been extraordinary, who could believe such a thing, if they hadn't seen it? She wouldn't be at all surprised if this Harold was the only person there who had allowed himself to take in what Reuben Sachs had said. A good phrase, take in. You can sit for an hour and a half listening to information that should shoot your precious citadel of faith to fragments, or that doesn't match easily with what is already in your brain, but you don't take it in. You can take a horse to water...
Frances did not sleep well that night, and it was because she was allowing herself to dream like a girl in love.
He telephoned next afternoon, and asked her to go with him for a weekend to a certain little town in Warwickshire, and she said she would, as easily as if she did this often. And she had to wonder again what it was about this man who could turn a key so easily in a door that she had kept shut. He was a solid, smiling, fairish man, whose characteristic look was of cool, humorous assessment. He was, or had been, an official in some educational organisation. A trade union official?
She supposed the usual assortment of kids would arrive for the weekend, and went up to Julia to say that she would like to take the weekend off. Using those words.
Julia seemed to smile a little. Was that a smile? Not an unkind one...'Poor Frances,' she said, surprising her daughter-in-law. 'You live a dull sort of life.'
'Do I?'
‘I think you do. And the young ones can look after themselves for once. '
And, as Frances went out she heard the low, ' Come back to us, Frances, ' and this surprised her so much she turned, but found that Julia had already picked up her book.
Come back to us... oh, that was perceptive of her, uncomfortably so. For she had been seized with a rebellion against her life, the relentless slog of it, and had wandered into a landscape of feverish dreams, where she would lose herself – and never return to Julia's house.
And there were her sons, and that was no joke. Told that their mother would be away that weekend, both reacted as if she had said she was off for a six-month jaunt.
Colin, from school, said on the telephone, ‘Where are you going? Who are you going with?'
'A friend,' said Frances, and there was a suspicious silence.
And Andrew gave her the bleakest smile, which was full of fear, but he certainly did not know that.
She was the stable thing in their lives, always had been, and it was no use saying both were old enough to allow her some freedom. But at what age do such insecurely-based children no longer need a parent to be there, always? This was their mother, taking off for the weekend with a man, and they knew it. If she had ever done anything like it before... but how obedient she had always been to their situation, their needs, as ifshe was making up for Johnny's lacks. 'As if'? – she had tried to make up for Johnny.
On the Saturday Frances crept out of the house knowing that Andrew would be on the look-out, for he was a restless sleeper, and Colin might have decided to wake earlier than his usual mid-morning. She glanced up at the front of the house, dreading to see Andrew's face, Colin's – but there were no faces at the windows. It was seven in the morning of a wonderful summer's day, and her spirits, in spite of her guilt, were threatening to shoot her up into an empyrean of irresponsibility, and here he was, her beau, her date, smiling, obviously enjoying what he saw, this blonde woman (she had had her hair done) in her green linen dress, settling herself beside him, and turning to him to share a laugh at this adventure.
They drove comfortably through the suburbs of London, and were in the country, and she was enjoying his enjoyment of her, and her pleasure in him, this handsome sandy man, and meanwhile she combated thoughts of the helpless unhappy faces of her sons.
Dear Aunt Vera, I am divorced and I bring up two boys. I am tempted to have an affair but I am afraid of upsetting my sons. They watch me like hawks. What shall I do? I'd like to have some fun. Don't I have any rights?
Well, if she, Frances, was in line for some fun then do it: and she shut her sons firmly out of her thoughts. Either that, or say to this man, Turn around and go back, I have made a mistake.