The Essence of the Thing Page 12

  ‘You don’t mean—’ he said; Nicola put out her cigarette.

  ‘We have to go on deck,’ she said. ‘Look at the time. He’s given me the elbow. C’est fini. On est parti. I’m now living in Clapham, as of last Saturday. For the time being. Please don’t mention it to anyone.’

  Philip looked more shocked. ‘Oh, Nicola,’ he exclaimed. ‘My poor baby.’

  ‘Yes, well, perhaps it was everything I deserved. Perhaps I had it coming to me. I don’t truly know.’

  Philip was still looking shocked. ‘I met him once, didn’t I?’ he said. ‘He was waiting for you one evening, when we came out together. Do I recall a beautiful blonde in dark-blue serge? Mmmm.’

  Nicola nodded. ‘That sounds right,’ she said.

  ‘That type can be very tricky, darling,’ said Philip. ‘I should have warned you.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have done any good,’ said Nicola. ‘And then, I haven’t met a type who can’t be.’

  ‘No, I haven’t either. As it happens.’

  ‘So you see—’

  ‘Men. They’re just weird.’

  ‘Perhaps women are too. We wouldn’t know.’

  They laughed.

  ‘We’d really better go in,’ said Nicola.

  ‘I’ll come and see you later,’ said Philip. ‘I’ll come and hold your hand.’

  They got up and paid their respective bills and left the coffee shop.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ said Nicola. ‘I’m trying to present an immaculate exterior.’

  ‘You’re a brave girl,’ said Philip. ‘And I’m another: your secrets will always be safe with me. Chin up, sweetie! Catch you later.’

  ‘Whizzy,’ said Nicola.

  54

  ‘What are you doing in here in the dark?’

  ‘Nothing. Just lying down.’

  ‘Are you tired? Do you want to have supper in bed?’

  ‘No, no. I’ll be fine. I’m just getting my strength back.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Shall I leave you alone again?’

  ‘No, stay for a moment.’

  Susannah sat down on the end of the bed. Nicola’s miracle recovery seemed to have gone into reverse. ‘I’m worried about you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m fine, truly.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘I just need to do something about my clothes. I didn’t bring enough.’

  ‘You can borrow mine, if you like.’

  ‘I’ll see. You are so kind.’

  ‘Would you like me to collect the rest of your stuff from Notting Hill?’

  ‘No, not yet. Thanks. I’ll buy something.’

  ‘We could go shopping on Thursday—didn’t you say you were getting Thursday off?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, we might do that.’

  Susannah didn’t have much spending money so on Thursday they looked for clothes for both of them in the various charity shops of the neighbourhood. Nicola ended up with a large carrier bag full of garments which left to herself she would not by any means have considered. Then they had the satisfaction of washing them all and hanging them out to dry. There were several items which Susannah meant to take with her the next day to Suffolk where she and her husband and child were to spend the Easter week. There was also a small cotton frock printed with pink and blue rabbits which was to be a moving-in present from Nicola, for Chloe. The weather had suddenly become much warmer as it sometimes can at this time of the year and after they had hung up the washing they sat in the garden together in the sunshine.

  ‘Do you feel just a tiny bit happier?’ said Susannah. ‘Just a tiny bit?’

  Nicola considered this. ‘Just a tiny bit,’ she said.

  ‘Wait till you get into those pink jeans,’ said Susannah. ‘That’ll do the trick.’

  Nicola considered this too. ‘You could be right,’ she said. ‘I’ll try it first thing.’

  ‘Or that denim skirt,’ said Susannah encouragingly.

  Nicola laughed. What was she doing with that denim skirt? ‘Are you sure about the length?’ she asked. ‘It looks a wee bit short to me.’

  ‘It should be shorter,’ Susannah assured her. ‘I should cut it off a bit if I were you.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Nicola.

  Guy came out to them.

  ‘Is that red T-shirt for me?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Susannah, ‘it’s mine, actually.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Guy. ‘Can I have one too?’

  ‘That’s the only one there is.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Sorry. Anyway, it’s too big for you.’

  ‘That’s what I want, a big one.’

  ‘Oh dear. Well, perhaps you can have that one—if you clean out the mice’s cage and tidy your room by the end of the afternoon.’

  Guy departed to perform this mission and Susannah sighed. ‘I wonder how long it will be,’ she said, ‘before he will do anything without being bribed? When does one learn that virtue is its own reward?’

  ‘Some people never do.’

  ‘Perhaps he’ll learn it in RE.’

  ‘That would be useful knowledge.’

  ‘More useful than learning about salvation, I would have thought.’

  ‘Oh, yes: salvation. Did he ever learn the meaning of salvation?’

  ‘I really don’t know. We’ll ask him when he comes out again.’

  Guy did come out again almost immediately, asking where he might find a box in which to house the mice while he cleaned their cage.

  ‘Listen, Guy,’ said his mother, ‘we were just wondering—do you remember telling us about salvation? Well—have you been told what it means, yet?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well: it means—it means—well, it means that instead of dying, you live, for ever—for ever. You have eternal life. That’s salvation.’

  ‘Sounds okay, so far. How do you get it, though?’

  ‘Well, you have to believe. You have to believe in Jesus Christ, as the only-begotten Son of God.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Well, that’s quite a lot.’

  ‘I suppose it is, at that.’

  ‘Oh, and, there are probably a few other things you have to do, to make quite sure. I mean, you can’t just believe; you have to be really good, you know, and confess your faults; and you have to love your enemies.’

  ‘I knew there’d be a catch.’

  Guy’s glance began to slide towards the red T-shirt. ‘I say,’ he said, ‘I’d better get on with these mice, or I won’t be finished in time.’

  ‘Just one more thing.’

  ‘If it’s quick.’

  ‘Do you believe?’

  ‘Well,’ said Guy, prevaricating, for he had not, so far, settled the question absolutely, ‘I might. I mean, probably. I’m not quite sure, yet. I mean—look, can I do the mice now? You said it would be quick.’

  ‘Sorry, darling. Okay. Go and do the mice. And your room, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’

  He went.

  ‘Cor!’ said Susannah. ‘I mean, cor. I had no idea they were teaching them theology.’

  ‘It’s hardly that.’

  ‘Well, near enough. I mean, at this rate, we’ll have a Christian on our hands.’

  ‘It’s a danger you run when you send a child to a C of E school.’

  ‘All we wanted was to make sure he got a good education, and that school just happened to be the nearest possibility.’

  ‘Well, God moves in a mysterious way.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s early days, I dare say.’

  ‘It’ll probably wear off; it’s hardly worn on, after all.’

  ‘That’s true. No need to get the wind up.’

  ‘It wears off most people, I imagine.’ Jonathan, for example.

  ‘That’s true too, probably.’

  ‘Still: salvation. Not such a bad deal, is it?’

  ‘I do
n’t know—perhaps it isn’t. It’s just—’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘I mean, the whole thing’s simply preposterous.’

  ‘Yes, it is, absolutely.’

  But that, she suddenly suspected, might be its chiefest recommendation. ‘You wouldn’t think anyone could ever believe that stuff, would you?’ she said, marvelling. ‘Let alone in these days.’

  ‘Even quite intelligent people. Otherwise intelligent, anyway.’

  ‘It’s an utter mystery.’

  ‘Yes, it is. An utter mystery.’

  55

  He’d been almost glad to come down to Gloucestershire this time: the flat was getting on his nerves. Of course, he could have gone somewhere else. He could have gone to any number of places, he had Europe at his feet. A whole four days: he could even have gone to New York, why not? Now that was a good question. Jonathan had come up against several good questions lately: a good question being one which has no apparent answer. So he had come down to Gloucestershire on this Easter Saturday, and now his mother was making some tea.

  ‘Your father is conferring with Charles Anstruther,’ she said; ‘he’ll be back in a while and we can have some lunch.’ She picked up the tea tray. ‘I thought we might have this in the garden,’ she said. ‘The tulips are all up, it’s looking so lovely. You got here just in time for them.’

  ‘Let me take that,’ said Jonathan.

  He took the tea tray and they went outside.

  ‘I’m surprised you’re not spending Easter together,’ said Sophie carefully, pouring tea. ‘You and Nicola. She is quite well, is she?’

  ‘We’re not together any longer,’ said Jonathan shortly. ‘Nicola and I have parted company.’

  Sophie put down the teapot. ‘Oh dear!’ she cried. ‘How dreadful!’

  These exclamations had escaped her as it were involuntarily; she was even it appeared surprised at having heard herself utter them.

  ‘Oh, do forgive me,’ she said hastily. ‘Of course you must know what you are doing better than I. I had no business—please, take no notice. Oh dear.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jonathan.

  Sophie was pink with confusion. A degree of alarm had seized her: she could not recover from the sensation that Jonathan’s words had provoked: she could only see the news as dreadful. She finished pouring the tea.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said weakly. ‘You seemed such a happy couple. I thought—well, there you are. My thoughts are beside the point, I know.’

  Jonathan drank some tea and said nothing.

  ‘Biscuit?’ said Sophie, handing the plate.

  Jonathan simply shook his head, the teacup at his lips.

  ‘Nice tea,’ he said. ‘Is it Darjeeling?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sophie sadly. ‘You know your father. He simply refuses to drink any other kind.’

  She drank some herself. She still felt quite acutely distressed. Nicola had not been ideal, perhaps no one ever could have been, but she had been nice: that was as much as one could really dare to ask. Sophie could not see how an intimate relationship between two nice people could possibly come adrift. This should by rights have concluded with an engagement to be married, not a separation. There was something dark, mysterious, wrong here: it filled her with fresh alarm and fear. What might one say? All her questions seemed impertinent. There were huge tracts of forbidden ground between mothers and sons. She stole a look at hers: his face was blank; it told her nothing. There was at any rate the matter of the flat; curiosity on that point at least was permissible.

  ‘You haven’t left the flat, then—have you? Or has Nicola—’

  ‘No,’ Jonathan said. ‘I’m taking over Nicola’s share of the mortgage. She’s moved out. We could have done it the other way around, but she couldn’t afford it.’

  The coldness of this startled even Jonathan himself, now that the words were out, here, now. This was the first conversation he had had on the subject since the situation had arisen. That there would be other people who must be told, that it would be he who must tell them, was an aspect of it which had not initially occurred to him. He had not foreseen how unpleasant it could be: how unpleasant to hear himself saying these words. One almost had an image of Nicola wrapped in a shawl, driven out into the snow. It was quite ridiculous, of course; he banished it from his mind, and with it all lesser suggestions of pathos or misfortune.

  ‘She’ll buy something else,’ he said, re-establishing her image as a woman of substance and resource; a free agent, just like himself. ‘It shouldn’t be difficult to find something suitable.’

  But Sophie, unable to ask any of the questions which clamoured in her mind, alive therefore to all chance clues and inferences, heard in these words some small part of the answer she sought.

  ‘I dare say this is not quite as she might have planned, though,’ she said very tentatively. ‘I mean, it does seem rather sad for her to have to leave that lovely flat that you’d both worked on so much.’

  This was Jonathan’s chance to assure her that the parting was at Nicola’s instigation; he did not do so.

  ‘That’s life,’ he said abruptly. ‘It often doesn’t work out according to plan. We all have to take our chances.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be,’ said Jonathan. ‘There is absolutely nothing to be sorry for. If you think there is then you’ve misunderstood the situation completely. We were both free of any responsibility except to ourselves. We weren’t married, we had no children. We were free to do as we liked. So we did.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Sophie. But she didn’t agree, not for a minute. That she should attempt to argue the point with Jonathan, however, was entirely out of the question. ‘Would you like some more tea?’ she said.

  And so the subject, dark and fearful as it remained, was closed.

  56

  ‘New car, Mother.’

  ‘Yes, we thought we’d treat ourselves. Your father says it’s a retirement present.’

  ‘But that’s not till next year.’

  ‘You know how impatient he can be. Vroom. Listen to that. Nought to sixty in three seconds, or something of the kind. He calls me Mrs Toad. We’ll go for a proper spin later, you can have a go.’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Why the dieting, Nicola?’

  ‘What dieting?’

  ‘You seem to have lost about a stone since we last saw you.’

  ‘You know how short the skirts are this year.’

  ‘It doesn’t suit you. You look terrible.’

  ‘Now I feel terrible too. Perhaps you’d better take me back to the station.’

  ‘Not before I’ve fed you up. See, here we are. No point in going back before you’ve had some cake. I made one just for you. Can you manage that? Let’s go in then.’

  They went inside, and into the kitchen. Elinor put the kettle on and they sat down.

  ‘What is it, Nicola?’ she said. She had suddenly thought: oh dear, she couldn’t be in the club, could she? But that might even turn out to be a good thing.

  ‘It’s nothing much,’ said Nicola. ‘It’s just, that Jonathan and I have parted.’

  ‘Oh, never!’ cried Elinor.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicola. ‘He’s decided that he doesn’t love me. After all. He’s going to buy me out. I’ve left the flat already, actually. I’m staying with Susannah. It’s all right, really. I’ve found a sort of piedà-terre near to her and Geoffrey, with some friends of theirs. I’m moving in at the end of next week. They’ve got a baby girl called Chloe. I’ll buy another flat eventually. I’ve just been feeling a bit of shock, that’s all. It all happened so suddenly. I’m fine, really. The kettle’s boiling, did you know?’

  Elinor got up to make the tea and Nicola sat twisting her hanky around her fingers. It was a long time since she had last cried; she had not thought that she would do so again, but tears were coming into her eyes now. In fact they were even starting to fall. Elinor put t
he teapot on the table and got the other accoutrements together. She sat down again. ‘My poor darling. I am so sorry.’

  Nicola began to cry in earnest, and her mother after a moment or two began to cry too.

  Her father came in: he had been out with the dog.

  ‘What on earth is going on here?’ he said.

  Elinor cast a despairing look at her daughter, as if to say, will you tell him or shall I?

  Nicola blew her nose. ‘Hello, Pa,’ she said. ‘It’s Jonathan. He’s—we’ve separated. As it were. So we were just having a cry. It’s nothing, really.’

  ‘Oh, if you say so,’ said Michael. ‘I should have said it was something. I’ve got a good mind to take a shotgun to him. That is—this was his idea, I take it? Judging by the fact that you’re in tears?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicola. ‘Although for all we know it’s still my fault.’

  ‘Of that I can’t see the slightest chance,’ said Michael. ‘It’s his fault, and he’s a rotter. I said he should have married you and had done. Now look. These new-fangled schemes are all very well, but they don’t work.’

  He sat down, genuinely and deeply perturbed, and Elinor poured out the tea.

  ‘I don’t understand how it could have happened,’ she said. ‘I thought you were so happy together.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Nicola sadly. ‘It seems that I was wrong. At least, latterly.’

  She gave them an edited account of the events of the past fortnight.

  ‘That Jonathan has a problem,’ said Elinor firmly.

  ‘The chap’s one slice short of a sandwich,’ said Michael. ‘Or even very possibly two slices.’

  ‘We should have seen it,’ said Elinor.

  ‘He was well camouflaged,’ said Michael. ‘One has a ridiculous prejudice in favour of people wearing traditional costume. Better try one of these chaps with spiky hair and black boots next time round, he might take proper care of you.’

  Nicola began to laugh and then to cry again.

  ‘There, there,’ said Elinor. ‘Don’t listen to your father. Let’s have some cake. Can you get it, Michael? It’s in the pantry.’

  They had an old-fashioned house with a pantry, a scullery, and an inglenook fireplace: someone had once told them it might be a Voysey, but they hadn’t attempted to verify the attribution.