Another Kind of Cinderella and Other Stories Page 6

  With the tiramisu, they had a second bottle of champagne. The chocolate seemed to have a sobering effect on the alcohol.

  ‘What I always wonder,’ said April, ‘is how much example rubs off on our children? I mean, if they see their parents working hard, does this mean they follow suit, or determine to behave quite differently? Our two are far from stupid – in fact, both are particularly good at maths. But they say that judging by us hard work isn’t all that rewarding – what can they mean by that, I wonder? They say it means we’re away so much. Or if we’re there we’re always so preoccupied, not concentrating enough on them. Talk is nothing but plans, they say. There are few peaceful times.’ She paused. ‘The sad thing is, they’re right.’

  Jack briefly patted April’s hand.

  ‘You’d better have a lot of coffee before driving home.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Or, you could stay.’ He watched her face, unable to read signals.

  April found the idea uninteresting, but she was very tired. She did not like the thought of the drive home. Perhaps Jack meant she should take a room herself . . . though by the look on his face, he didn’t.

  ‘I’ve a charming room. The one, it’s said, where Oscar Wilde discovered his proclivities.’

  April smiled. If the example of parents rubbed off on to their children, then his four sons must be a pompous lot, she thought. Jack, taking her expression to mean acceptance, pressed her hand rather than patted it this time.

  ‘I don’t want to appear presumptuous,’ he said. ‘That’s the last thing I want. Two strangers brought together by the non-appearance of a headmaster . . . very rum, but could just be our good luck. Shall I see if they have a room for you?’

  That was rather nice of him, thought April, her head still afloat, her body deliquescent from the warmth of the fire. Considerate. A kind man. Martin far away with Marilyn. Too weary to listen to arguments within her, suddenly the fight went out of her.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she said.

  April was intrigued by the bedroom, transformed from the spartan place of Wilde’s day. Everything had been thought of: safe, clock, magnificent Italian shower in the marble bathroom, fridge full of drinks, comfortable armchair, interlined curtains, fruit and flowers.

  ‘Amazing,’ she said. Exploring the place slowly enabled her to postpone the future imperfect, the awkwardness of making the next move towards the night in the large bed.

  ‘I can see you’re not used to hotels, this sort of thing.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah.’ Evidently Jack was.

  As the champagne began to ebb, giving way to the clarity of mind induced by black coffee, April began to see the scene in all its horror. She had become a mere pawn in what was a normal way of life to Jack Johnson: trips away from home meant automatically picking up any available woman. He sat heavily on the bed.

  ‘I won’t lay a finger on you,’ he said, ‘if that’s what you want.’

  The horror receded: he was a man of surprises. April now felt she had maligned him. He wasn’t simply a ruthless seducer, after all. In fact, he seemed a lonely man. Rather sad. And it had been a very generous dinner. A question, so often struggled with in her youth, came back to April – was he owed payment for such a dinner? What should she do? Even now, there was time to go.

  April shut herself in the bathroom to confront herself. Twenty minutes later, she reappeared in the white towelling bathrobe provided by the hotel. Jack was watching the television, drinking whisky. He looked up, appraising.

  ‘Parents,’ he said, and laughed a little grimly.

  The next morning, Jack Johnson and April Verner took breakfast at the same table, with its comfortable chairs, where they had dined the night before. A new fire was burning, pale bars of sun sloped across the white-clothed tables.

  Jack had to be in Bristol at ten. He kept glancing at his watch. April was free until the afternoon, when she had a meeting in Chambers. She felt inclined, on so temperate a day, to linger in Oxford a while, walk through Magdalen deer parks, perhaps. See if the fritillaries were out.

  ‘Well,’ said Jack. The inner battle between impatience to be off and the desire to remain polite to the end of this assignation caused sweat to froth on his temples. He signalled for the waiter, the bill, no less ostentatiously than he had the night before. Between them they had eaten a whole basket of warm bread rolls and croissants baked at dawn.

  ‘I must be off.’

  ‘I might stay a while.’

  ‘You do that. Another cappuccino? Read the papers.’ He stood up. ‘Very nice to have met you.’ He leant down, kissed April on the cheek. She felt his dampness, was repelled by the sweetness of his aftershave. ‘Could be we’ll meet again at our next appointments with Smiley . . .’ He put a small white card beside April’s plate: business address and numbers. ‘Call me if you feel like it, won’t you?’

  Then Jack Johnson picked up his smart little overnight case with its expensive leather straps and was gone.

  April tore the card into minute pieces which she mixed with the crumbs on her plate. Tonight Martin would be home and she would insist, this time, that he came with her to see the headmaster. Tonight he would tell her in jovial detail about his trip to France, only omitting to mention the presence of Marilyn. He would probably forget to ask what the headmaster had said about the boys. It certainly wouldn’t occur to him to ask how she had spent her evening. In the same way that trust makes infidelity easy to accomplish, so does lack of interest in a spouse’s activities. In Addison Walk, an hour later, April remembered the hopes she had entertained on many such walks as an undergraduate. Love, interest, a liveliness of being as man and wife, the mutual, buoyant pleasure of being parents.

  On the journey back to London, April relived the gropings of the night and laughed herself to scorn. It was only the second time she had been unfaithful in fifteen years: she should have treated herself, at least, to a better lover. Physically churlish, Jack Johnson had been, and she had had no heart to encourage him in less selfish ways. But, far worse than his ungracious thudding, had been later to see him sleep so quickly beside her, apparently unmoved by a stranger in the bed. He had snored, tossed crudely about in sleep, snatching the sheets from her side. At dawn, April, who had not slept at all, crept out for a bath and dressed. She could not face lying beside his early-morning face, ruddy manifestation of her mistake.

  Within days of returning to home and working life, the horrible night disappeared. She could not remember Jack’s features, his hands, his voice. And even when she returned to the school some months later, for Sports Day, the sight of him failed at first to re-ignite her guilt.

  She saw him in the distance, a cross-looking woman in skinny spectacles by his side. He still wore the red handkerchief: this time it flopped from the pocket of a creased linen suit. Martin, by April’s side, followed her gaze.

  ‘Never ceases to fascinate me,’ he said. ‘You look at the children, then at their parents, and you understand instantly why those children are like they are.’ Three plump boys had joined Jack Johnson. They hung about with the important look of old boys returning to their prep school. A small, skinny one clung to the woman. The little wretch, April supposed, her pity renewed. Then they were lost from sight in the crowd.

  She next saw Jack lined up for the fathers’ race: jacket off, silk shirt darkened with melon slices of sweat under the arms.

  ‘Not much competition there,’ said Martin and went to stand beside Jack.

  April and her two boys found themselves next to the Johnson wife and children among the spectators. April observed the resigned mouth of Mrs Johnson – the hunched shoulders and bloodless hands, while Martin ran an easy race to beat the rest of the motley field. Jack, she saw, lumbered up second from last.

  April, as much as her sons, enjoyed Martin’s win (third year running) and found herself laughing, joining the congratulations as he put an arm around her shoulders. From the corner of her eye, she saw Jack J
ohnson dab his face with the red handkerchief and wave. April gave the smallest nod of recognition, dismissing him so entirely in her mind that there was no time to wonder, for the hundredth time, how she could ever have been so unwise.

  Martin’s arm continued to rest around her shoulders. Since Marilyn had moved to some other company, his infatuation had waned and he was exercising his charms on April, which was often his way between infidelities. At such times, she found forgiveness easy. The love she usually felt it necessary to withhold from her husband she bestowed willingly on him again, hoping it could remain thus for a month or so.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Martin was saying to her and the boys, ‘I’ve booked a table for dinner before we drive back, some hotel I heard was the Algonquin of Oxford. All right?’ His eyes met April’s. She could think of no reason to refuse, and nodded.

  The bar of The Old Parsonage was filled with parents and their children that night, celebrating the end of another term, another year. For some, the junction between the end of preparatory school before the step to public school. Around the small polished tables, family life abounded noisily, happily. Martin chose April’s favourite white wine without asking. From time to time, her eyes travelled among the very disparate mothers and fathers. The relief she felt that Jack Johnson and his wife were not among them registered lightly as a shadow on her warm skin and, in the kind light of the evening, she liked to think it was only the innocence of her sons that made her want to cry.

  Laughter in the Willows

  It was Isabel Loughland’s second summer up at Oxford and in her own mind she was a failure. This feeling had come to her within weeks of arriving at New College, and settled more deeply every term. It was nothing to do with her studies. That part of her life, mercifully, was rewarding. She worked hard, taking advantage of hours unoccupied by romantic interest, and the results were encouraging. If she carried on like this, she had been advised, there was a chance she would get a good second-class degree – even a first.

  This thought was no compensation for a loveless life. The few girlfriends Isabel had made had paired off with men very soon after they arrived. By now, initial partners had changed and changed again. Keeping up with the shuffle of love affairs was at first entertaining (how Isabel admired their ability to be so positive of their attraction to one, and then so quickly to another). Now it was wearying. She no longer bothered. She had become used to being a lone figure in a coupled society, and reckoned a change in this situation was unlikely. Among the dozens of male undergraduates she had encountered, not a single one had caused her the ungrounding that she knew to be the prime indication of love.

  Isabel felt no self-pity: merely, puzzlement. The men who had made advances to her – and even now, when the fear of committing sexual harassment makes for some hesitation, there was no shortage of them – had claimed her as pretty, almost beautiful. Certainly she was a good listener – her mother had taught her there was no aphrodisiac so potent as lending an attentive ear. She could make people laugh. She was the provider of imaginative gestures; she was modest and sympathetic.

  The stumbling block, she knew, was the unfashionable air that blew off her, awesome as expensive scent. She did not dress like the others, in jeans and grubby layered things, and elephantine boots. She wore long, clean skirts of pure cotton or velvet, and pumps of pale kid. She brushed her hair and, in summer, wore straw hats stuck with real flowers to evensong. Her demeanour gave clues to her limitations. She had no desire to become close to a man after a single drink in The Blue Boar (although she was not averse to a pint of lager), and any suggestions of a kiss on immediate acquaintance were politely turned down. It was not that she was a prude – when the time came, she was convinced she would make love as keenly as her friends. But she was of the outdated belief that the only chance of a lasting relationship was friendship that developed into love and sex: the other way round did not augur well for permanency. While mere lust did not interest her, the height of her ideals caused her disillusion. Several times, her hopes were raised in the direction of a particular figure, only to be crushed by his expectations of instant physical gratification.

  She should have been born in a different age, Isabel reflected, as she did so often. On this fine evening, sitting by herself in New College gardens, she imagined the attraction of life at Jane Austen’s pace: the containing of realisation. That’s what she sought. That was the essence of the romance she believed in.

  Isabel picked daisies from the perimeter of her rug. She tried to remember how to make a chain. Various couples walked by, caught up in the kind of rapture which, in her judgement, was too self-conscious to be anything more than temporary. She felt no envy: that was not what she wanted. But disappointment on finding no one of the stuff she imagined, in almost two years at Oxford, was sometimes acute. Now, for instance. It was a waste of such an evening, not to be sharing it. Returning to books was sometimes not enough.

  The lilacs, nearby, were beginning to unfurl. Blossom snowed down from a cherry tree. Shadows had stretched almost to the edge of the rug. (Isabel was ridiculed for her rug, with its mackintosh backing.) Others, nearby, sat on the grass. Time to go in, she thought. Back to her room. An evening of more study.

  She looked up. A single man – a rare sight on a fine summer’s evening in college grounds – was coming towards her. He was exceptionally thin, narrow. From a distance, his face was a blade. He wore pale baggy trousers of crushed linen, as if he’d just discovered Brideshead. Isabel smiled at the thought. She recognised him. Last week in chapel she had dropped her prayer book. He had picked it up, returned it to her. In the brief moment of the handing over, their eyes had met without interest.

  It was evident, in the firmness of his step, that he was not about to pass by. He was intent on speaking.

  Isabel shifted slightly, indicating reluctance to be encountered. She wanted to continue with her quiet evening, not have to make the effort to turn down an invitation.

  The man was by her now. A concave figure, holding out his hand – an unusual gesture among students. Isabel shook it, surprised by such unaccustomed formality, but good manners instinctive within her.

  ‘Jacques,’ he said, ‘de Noailles. We met in chapel last Sunday evening. I’ve been looking for you.’

  Isabel suppressed a small sigh. She could not be unbent by flattery.

  ‘Isabel Loughland,’ she said reluctantly. ‘This is my college.’

  Jacques lowered himself, unasked, on to the grass beside the rug. It did not occur to Isabel to invite him to share it.

  ‘I’m at Corpus.’ Jacques de Noailles leant back on his elbows, shut his eyes, In the instant that they were shut, Isabel observed a veil of pure evil cross his face. Or perhaps it was a strand of shade extending, now that it was almost eight, from the lilacs. There was something intriguing in the way his narrow chest dipped deeply towards his spine. She liked the cornflower blue of his clean shirt.

  He opened his eyes, made no attempt to smile at her.

  ‘Greats,’ he said. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Mediaeval History.’

  ‘That was an option for me. I would have liked that. But my father said, don’t miss your chance of philosophies. He’s French. You know what eager philosophers the French are.’

  Isabel put down the book she had picked up in readiness to leave before Jacques had arrived.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Strange: this is my third year and last Sunday was the first time I’ve seen you,’ said Jacques.

  ‘Not so very strange, so many . . . It’s only my second year.’

  ‘Ah.’ They talked about their undergraduate lives for a while, and their vacations. Jacques said he divided his time between his mother in Scotland and his father in Provence. After coming down from Oxford, he said, he intended to take a course at the Sorbonne. Isabel told him she lived in Devon. Both her parents were botanists, often away in foreign mountains in search of extraordinary species. She and Jacques did not ask e
ach other many questions. They took it in turns to offer small pieces of information, giving little away.

  An hour passed. It had grown cool. Jacques raised himself on to his haunches, made ready to go.

  ‘I was just wondering – is there anything in Oxford that you haven’t done in your two years here? That you would like to do? It’s difficult to come up with an original invitation. But I’m sorry. Silly question. It was only that I thought a girl like you must have done everything.’

  Isabel felt herself blush. She let a long moment pass. Dare she tell him? Yes, she decided.

  ‘As a matter of fact, there is one thing. It’s so . . . childish. Such a cliché. It’s what everyone does in their first summer, but somehow the chance never came. I want to go on a punt. . .’

  Jacques did not laugh, as she had expected.

  ‘Well, for that matter, I’ve never been on one either,’ he said. ‘It’s never occurred to me. Alors! We shall go on a punt. I shall make arrangements.’

  He stood, very quickly, rubbing his long thin thighs with his long thin hands. He pulled Isabel to her feet.

  ‘Politically incorrect, I dare say.’ They both laughed. ‘You’re taller than I expected.’ He swooped down again, as if embarrassed by the intimacy of the spontaneous observation, and picked up the daisy chain. For a moment, Isabel thought he intended to take it: an unlikely romantic gesture. But he gave it back to her, dangling it lightly across her wrist. ‘Now, I must go.’

  Dusk had covered the grass, thickened the trees.

  The next morning, Isabel found a message at the Lodge. Be at Magdalen Bridge at three p.m. Bring your rug. Jacques.

  Impertinent, the rug bit, she thought. Though not impertinent enough to refuse the invitation.

  She lay back in the punt, eyes half closed. All was just as she had imagined. Her rug was spread over cushions supplied by Jacques who tussled, tight-lipped, with the pole. Isabel pretended not to notice his lack of talent as a punter, and did not mind how long it took, the journey down the river. The heat of the sun and plash of water made her sleepy, too sleepy to speak.