Gently with passion, p.19
Gently with Passion,
p.19
THIRTY-FOUR
PERHAPS THE WORST of it all was that she could forget Keith so quickly, so that within a few days she had difficulty even in remembering what he had looked like. She was obliged to admit afresh that he had never been important to her, and that when the shock of his death had receded she was rather impatient at the thought of him. Keith had been forced upon her, but he had forced himself upon her too. She had never seriously accepted him except as a distraction. At first she had blamed herself for that but the blame was more romantic than real; his pursuit of her had been egoistic and had made no demands on her sincerity. They had been intimate but they had been strangers, each in search of his own end. His tragic death had given the affair a false significance but now that falseness was becoming plain. Someone, she felt, should be grief-stricken about Keith, but she knew that someone could not be her.
She made her peace with Simon; this called for a little magnanimity. George could draw up what balance he liked, but Stella knew what she knew. She let a couple of days pass because she had heard that Simon’s father was down there, then one evening she lifted the phone and dialled the Lazy Waters number. Simon answered.
‘Hullo Simon.’
‘Oh, hullo.’ He sounded weary.
‘Is your father still with you?’
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘He left this morning. The funeral is in Yorkshire. I’m running up there tomorrow. And I’m dead, Stella, completely dead. The others have scuttled back to town.’
‘Can you face up to seeing me?’
‘Not if you’re going to bawl me out.’
‘I’m not going to do that, Simon.’
‘You had better come then. It’ll make a change.’
She took care not to arrive until after his usual hour for supper, and she found him drinking coffee in his favourite chair in the lounge. He was alone. The piano where Woody had played was shut, the settee was no longer draped with Dawn, no voluptuous Glynda cast jealous eyes. By itself, near the French windows, stood the chair on which Keith had sat reading her poems, and down the lawn, beyond the willows, the heedless boats passed. Simon rose when she entered, giving her a haggard, appealing look. Then he rang for some fresh coffee and threw himself down again.
‘Should I make my apology now?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, Simon. I’ve had time to mull it over and it seems pointless to make apologies.’
‘My father guessed what I had been up to.’
‘I’m sorry. That couldn’t have been fun.’
‘It wasn’t. And here’s the strange thing. We patched it up over the coffin.’
‘I’m truly glad of that, Simon.’
‘I’m more surprised than anything else. I’m one of the undeserving rich – I fall on my feet every time.’
She didn’t stay long, nor did Simon seem to expect it. The whole point of the visit was that she had made it. As she was leaving he took her hand and pressed it warmly, but that was all. They had returned to the footing of friends and the rest was best left unspoken.
It was not so easy to settle what her footing was with George and she had little time to explore the problem, since his holiday finished at the end of the week. She spent his last two afternoons with him, and learned a lot about angling. She also elicited that he was probably in love with his wife. He was friendly, but never offered a pass. He seemed to enjoy her company, as she did his. He liked her to talk, admired her she was sure, and they appeared to have many tastes in common; yet had she truly made an impression on George, would he want to see her again? For the answer to this interesting question she was kept waiting till the very last moment. Then, as she was about to depart from the houseboat, leaving him with bags packed for the morning, he went carelessly round his pockets in search of a card for her.
‘We’ll perhaps meet again when you’re back in town. You are coming back, aren’t you?’
She made up her mind instantly. ‘Yes. I’ll be back quite soon.’
‘I work unsocial hours, you know, but I can usually sort something out. My wife is French, and besides the flat we have a house near the sea in Suffolk.’
She jotted her address on the leaf of a notebook and George inserted it carefully in his wallet. As she rowed off down to the summerhouse she felt a complacency that was delightful. The reeds were tall in their summer greenness, the heron guarded the water lily. Leander was dead, but it didn’t matter. She was a foolish woman, but she was free.
Brundall, 1982
Alan Hunter, Gently with Passion
