The Essence of the Thing Read online

  64

  The note which she received at work on Tuesday morning was hand-written on the firm’s stationery.

  Dear Nicola,

  The paperwork in re the mortgage transfer is now in order, so if you could call in here later in the week and sign on the relevant dotted lines the sale can be finalised. I suggest Thursday at around one p.m.—let me know if you would prefer a different day or time or both.

  Yours,

  Jonathan

  Dear Jonathan,

  The time you suggest is as good as any—I will see you then.

  Nicola

  And now she was on the top of a bus—because it was more amusing than the tube, and there was no other amusement here to be had—crawling through the lunch-hour traffic towards the City, and Jonathan, and the finalising of the sale, and it’s just a task to be performed, she told herself, a mere detail: not the worst, not even the last to be tidied away: it will take only a few minutes.

  She was kept waiting for two of these minutes at the reception desk, and then Jonathan appeared. He nodded and did not quite smile, and she followed him down a corridor and into his office. He had quite a large one these days, it appeared. The furniture seemed rather good: a knee-hole desk with a leather top, even a wing chair in a corner. For a dowager, say. Did Jonathan deal with dowagers? It was not altogether out of the question. There was probably a bottle of very dry sherry somewhere but he did not offer it now. He indicated a chair opposite his own and she sat down.

  He began to shuffle the papers before him, extracting those which she needed to sign, and looked up.

  ‘Keeping well?’ he said pleasantly.

  She assured him that she was.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now then. If you could just sign here— and again here—where the crosses are.’ And he handed her two documents. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘of course—you’ll be needing a pen.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ve got one.’

  She opened her handbag and took out a pen and removed the cap. He sat back as if, rather self-consciously, relaxing: determined that she should understand that this episode was all in a day’s work. He could hardly not watch her, as she cast an eye over what she was signing her name to before actually writing: it would have been artificial to have looked in any other direction.

  Of course she had dressed rather carefully for this occasion. It was a fairly warm day, summer clothes were no longer a sign of naivete or bumpkin-like over-enthusiasm; she was wearing a very pale linen skirt and a silk jersey. Immaculate, that was the idea. She finished signing and handed the documents back to him.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘And here is your—’ but he didn’t finish the sentence; there wasn’t a way of doing so which wasn’t too unspeakably crude: he simply handed her the cheque.

  She looked at it: it meant absolutely nothing to her. She had done no calculations; she barely even remembered the amount of the valuation that he’d arranged.

  He began to explain. ‘There’s a run-down here of the actual figures,’ he said; ‘here it is.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I really don’t need to see them.’

  ‘As you like,’ he said, replacing the sheet of paper. He closed the folder. The business was done.

  She put the cheque in her handbag and he looked at his watch.

  ‘I’d offer you lunch,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I’m rather pushed for time—I’ve got a client due in half an hour.’

  She got up. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘I didn’t for a moment expect it.’

  She turned towards the door and he came around the desk to meet her.

  ‘I’ll see you out then,’ he said, and she followed him down the corridor and through the reception area.

  The office seemed still to be deserted, everyone except the relief receptionist, who was busy typing and hardly looked up at them, still at lunch. He held open the outer door for her and followed her into the lobby. He was seeing her off the premises good and properly. She pressed the lift button and heard the sound of its ascent from perhaps two floors below.

  ‘Well—’ he said, his face having at last, her departure being imminent, brightened, ‘good—lu—’ but he never completed the ill-chosen (but none would have been better) word: for, as the lift arrived, in the instant before the doors opened to admit her, she turned around towards him, standing there, relieved, so very, visibly, relieved, and she slapped his face.

  The last thing she saw, as the doors of the lift closed between them, was his greyish-blue eyes staring at her, sharp with fright and shock, above the hand (very slightly sunburned, its long fingers splayed) which he had raised to cover the appalling, angry, crimson mark which already burned his fair-skinned cheek. It had made a most discernible sound, that slap. She’d been as gratified as surprised at the sound it had discernibly made. If the relief receptionist had stopped typing she’d very possibly have heard it quite clearly. Nicola hoped most sincerely that the relief receptionist had not in fact stopped typing.

  65

  ‘You didn’t,’ said Susannah. ‘I mean, you didn’t. Never! Tell me you’re making this up.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Nicola. ‘Because I’m not. I did.’

  ‘My God,’ said Susannah. ‘If I had some champagne in the house I’d open it now. I’ve got a good mind to go out and get some.’

  ‘Better not. I mustn’t get squiffy, I’m minding Chloe this evening—I should be getting back about now, really; I just thought I’d pop in very quickly on the way. Oh—and furthermore: I had that Scunthorpe interview today.’

  ‘Oh, really? Whereabouts?’

  ‘They borrowed a room at the Arts Council.’

  ‘Was it awful?’

  ‘Yes; horrible. Four of them. Perfectly charming and utterly steely-eyed.’

  ‘So long as you haven’t got it.’

  ‘Not the slightest chance. But it’s great to have made the shortlist. I might add it to my CV next time. “Shortlisted for position as Assistant to the Director, Scunthorpe Literary Festival.” That should jack up my employment profile. Now I’d better get back to little Chloe.’

  ‘I must say they were dashed quick off the mark there.’

  ‘What did you expect?’

  Chloe was in the kitchen with her mother eating fish fingers and carrots.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ said a harried-looking Helen. ‘Brilliant. Look, you wouldn’t mind finishing off her tea, would you? I’d have a chance to bathe and change. She’ll just eat this lot, more or less, and then she can have some of this yoghurt and go to bed. Wonderful.’

  She vanished and Nicola sat down beside the child and began to converse with her. The fish fingers lost their appeal after a while and had to be abandoned—Nicola, eating one, could quite see why—but she ate all the yoghurt. Then Nicola took her upstairs to play for a spell.

  ‘Ah,’ said Sam, poking his head around the sitting-room doorway, ‘you’re both in here, are you? Good. Is she behaving herself? Good. Don’t take any nonsense from her, mind. Give her an inch and she’ll take an ell. Whatever that is. Won’t you?’

  Chloe looked up at him in understandable amazement.

  ‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

  This time she did not say yeah, but continued to stare at him wide-eyed, and then she nodded as if in summary dismissal of both the question and its author, and turning crawled away across the floor.

  ‘Still, at least she’s got blue eyes,’ he said resignedly. ‘I suppose that’s something.’

  ‘I should say so,’ said Nicola, with only a hint of sadness.

  Ah, but it was. It was certainly something. There was unquestionably something magical about blue eyes.

  ‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘I’d better get cracking or I’ll be in trouble. Again. Excuse me.’

  Nicola picked up the baby and sat her on her knee and began to sing to her:

  Mares eat oats

  And does eat oats

  But little lamb
s eat parsley

  while holding her hands and clapping them together on the down beat. Soon the child was enthralled.

  ‘Dozey!’ she cried. ‘Darzey!’

  Sam and Helen, coming in to say goodbye and seeing all this, exchanged looks of massive self-congratulation as they left the house. How anyone not the responsible parent could possibly be prevailed upon to look after, let alone play with, an infant child was entirely beyond their comprehension: but never mind that: the freak had come to them, and life had taken on a whole new iridescence.

  66

  Nicola was sitting in a brasserie in Soho with Lizzie drinking vodka and tonics.

  ‘Listen, darling,’ said Lizzie, ‘Alf saw your friend the other evening. Ran into him in the Middle Temple or somewhere.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ said Nicola. ‘I’m glad to know he’s still around and about.’

  ‘The thing is, why don’t you tell me everything that’s happened since I last saw you—if you like, that is. I’m not trying to pry.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I ought to have been in touch much sooner but you know how it is.’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Henrietta’s had chicken pox.’

  ‘Oh dear. Poor Henrietta.’

  ‘She got it from Fergus.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘At Easter.’

  ‘What a drag.’

  ‘Children are funny that way.’

  ‘Poor little things.’

  ‘Have you been all right then?’

  ‘Mostly.’ She began to give Lizzie a résumé of the events of the past several weeks, ending up with the Scunthorpe interview.

  ‘But that’s extraordinary,’ exclaimed Lizzie. ‘I’m producing a program about the Scunthorpe Festival for Channel Four. How marvellous to have you on the spot.’

  ‘But I won’t be.’

  ‘You might be.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘We’ll see. Perhaps I’ll have a word with—’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  ‘All right. Whatever you say.’

  ‘Not that I’m ungrateful, but—’

  ‘No, you’re right of course. Still it might be rather interesting, as these things go.’

  ‘Yes, I’m almost sorry I won’t be involved. I only applied on a sort of bloody-minded whim. Just after Jonathan sacked me, you see. I was feeling rather mental.’

  ‘Poor Nicola. Was it really that bad, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then perhaps I can offer some consolation.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘As I mentioned, an eminent member of the junior bar, not noted for any tendency to embroider or otherwise obscure the truth, has reported your friend—’

  ‘Ex-friend.’

  ‘—your ex-friend, sighted earlier this week in the environs of the Middle Temple—I think it was the Middle Temple—where was I up to?’

  ‘The subordinate clause following your, that is, my, ex-friend.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, the ex-friend gave the impression—so I’m told— that life had lost all its sweetness. He appeared to be both careworn and melancholy, in a tight-lipped sort of way. My silks and fine array/My smiles and languished air/By love are driven away/And mournful lean despair/Comes with yew to deck my grave/Such end true lovers have, sort of aspect.’

  ‘Gosh. Are you quite sure?’

  ‘That was pretty much the look of it.’

  ‘What bloody cheek.’

  ‘Still, better miserable now, and through his own fault, and therefore deservedly so, than not at all.’

  ‘Poor Jonathan.’

  ‘You don’t still—’

  ‘No. No no no no no!’

  67

  ‘Susannah, something awful has happened.’

  ‘Then why are you grinning like that?’

  ‘Because it’s so funny.’

  ‘Oh, I see. You’ve got the Scunthorpe job. Nicola, how could you?’

  ‘It’s not my fault. It’s not as if I’d tried.’

  ‘So it is your fault. If only you’d tried you wouldn’t have got it. Oh, well, no harm done, you can just turn it down. You are going to turn it down, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I can’t. I haven’t. They rang me at work today, you see. The daytime telephone number. And I accepted.’

  ‘Oh, how could you? Why?’

  ‘Well, what else could I do? I mean, it would have looked so bad. It just isn’t on, to back off at this stage. At least without a very good reason. I was on the spot, I really had to accept.’

  ‘Oh, hell.’

  ‘No, it’s good, really. Six months in Scunthorpe, why not?’

  ‘Oh, Nicola, I can’t believe this. But anyway—you won’t be up there all the time, will you?’

  ‘Well, I might be doing a bit of popping up and down, I suppose.’

  ‘When do you start?’

  ‘On the first of June. Just a month from now. I’ve already given in my notice.’

  ‘That’s that then. How awful.’

  ‘No it isn’t. It’ll be very good for my career. I’ll be getting some publicity experience, and all sorts. They wanted an all-rounder, you see; someone flexible, not too set in their ways.’

  ‘So they chose you.’

  ‘Yes. They must have seen me on the dance floor at one of those clubs.’

  ‘Probably. They have spies everywhere.’

  ‘Yes: arts administration and allied trades is the big game in town, after all.’

  ‘Soon they’ll be nudging each other as you pass them on your way to a good table at le restaurant du bon ton and muttering, don’t look now, but that’s Nicola Gatling.’

  ‘They could even be doing it already. Or would be, if I were actually on my way to a good table, or any table, at le restaurant du bon ton. Oh, but that reminds me: can you all come out to dinner next Saturday night, on me? There’s an amusing new place I’ve heard about on this side of the fleuve, and I thought I’d ask you all and Philip and Jean-Claude. Time for a tiny little party. What do you say?’

  ‘I say wonderful idea. Thank you, Nicola.’

  ‘You see there’s just one more chore I have to do. This will be a reward for reaching the end of the whole routine. I dare say you know the routine to which I allude.’

  ‘Guess I do, honey. Ruby Keeler never worked harder.’

  ‘So I’ll book a table for tomorrow week.’

  ‘Whizzy.’

  ‘What’s whizzy?’

  ‘Oh, there you are. Nicola’s taking us out to dine in an amusing new restaurant next Saturday night.’

  ‘Me too?’

  ‘Yes, you too!’

  ‘Wow, that’s whizzy. Shall I go and tell Dad?’

  ‘You do that.’

  Guy ran off, and came back a minute later.

  ‘Did you tell him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said, whizzy.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘Yes, truly, he did. Whizzy, he said.’

  ‘That’s whizzy.’

  68

  She’d forgotten entirely to give Jonathan her keys: but that turned out to be rather a good thing than not, in the circumstances.

  Dear Jonathan,

  I’m sorry this has taken so long to organise—but I thought of collecting the rest of my things next Saturday at around two p.m. if that suits you. I still—sorry for the oversight—have the keys, so I could let myself in in your absence and then lock up and leave the keys for you in an envelope in the letter box downstairs. Please let me know if this arrangement is in any way inconvenient.

  Yours,

  Nicola

  Receiving no reply to this letter Nicola assumed very reasonably that the arrangement was in fact a convenient one; at the appointed time she was to be seen letting herself into the building.

  She had rigorously banished all thought of the distress she might suffer in coming here once more—an
d then in leaving, once more, and finally: oh, how she had cautioned and lectured herself! She ran up all the stairs as quickly as she could as if to show herself how paltry an undertaking this truly was. A woman dressed in pink jeans couldn’t be supposed to be engaged upon anything grave or momentous, anything which could stop the heart. She arrived at the second floor, at the door which had for so long been her very own; she unlocked it, and taking a deep breath, entered the flat.

  The silence was appalling. Her presence seemed to violate some secret force which was now in possession of the place; she almost expected hands to reach out from the walls and seize hold of her so as to inhibit her progress. In the hope of eluding them she passed as quickly as she could down the short passageway leading from the front door so as to enter the large bright space of the sitting room: there, surely, she would find some ghostly welcome—or if not a welcome, some ghostly acknowledgment, at least, of her right to be here on this one, last, occasion. She had glimpsed already the brilliant, almost-white glare of the sunshine pouring into the room: now she entered it.

  The shock of its dazzling brightness passed in a stunning instant, to be replaced by a new and yet deeper impression of silence. Here, in the sunlit emptiness, the silence was more terrible still. She sat down, trembling, on the edge of the sofa, marvelling, almost stricken. I should not have come here, she thought. I can’t manage it after all. I am not as brave as I thought.

  But I am here, she told herself sternly: I must simply get on with what I have to do. So that was what she did, rising from her seat, and, almost blindly, forcing herself, retracing her steps, and going into the bedroom to open the wardrobe where she supposed her remaining possessions still to be as she had left them so many weeks ago.

  But here a further shock awaited her. For if the silence of the flat had appalled and even frightened her before, it now seemed to assault her. It told her that she had no right to be here, none: this silence seemed to emanate from a force darker and more secret still than that which possessed the sitting room and passageway. This room was forbidden not only to her but to all sentient creatures. This room, with its mahogany wardrobe, its discreetly magnificent bed, its north-facing windows through which she could—even now—see the tops of the trees in the communal gardens swaying in the breeze of a spring afternoon, was a habitation now only for denial, desolation and grief: for whatever dark spirits are sucked into the vacuum left by the departure of tenderness, love and trust. She perceived this in an instant, clearly: Jonathan had evidently perceived it too: she could see that he had not returned to this room either. It had been abandoned altogether. Denial, desolation and grief stroked her with their frail detaining fingers and whispered to her in their tiny keening voices; she crossed the room and turning the large iron key which secured them opened the doors of the wardrobe.