Tania began to eat her last apple. She said, abruptly, ‘I love your parents.’

  ‘Yes. They’re nice.’

  ‘Are you going to get married?’

  The question, disconcerting, was neither inquisitive nor curious. Simply interested.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Janey. She had been trying not to think about David all day.

  ‘But there’s someone special?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t you want to get married?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to.’

  ‘But he doesn’t want to?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Aren’t men hell?’ said Tania sympathetically, and finished her apple in silence and threw the core away. Janey waited for her to say something more, but she leaned back against the stone wall of the summer house, and turned up her marvellous face to the sun. Her eyes closed. Her lashes lay like dark fans against the tan of her cheeks. Watching her, observing her was a pleasure. She charmed; she was beautiful; apparently flawless.

  * * *

  That evening, after she had changed, Janey went into her parents’ room and gave them their present. A photograph of herself – which had been asked for – in a silver frame – which had not. They were gratifyingly pleased. There was even a shine of a tear in her mother’s eyes. ‘We couldn’t have had anything nicer,’ she told Janey. ‘And we couldn’t have had a nicer daughter. We’re really terribly lucky.’

  Mrs Ashcroft wore a new dress which her husband had given her, and her pale curly hair framed a face which was as excited as a child’s. Growing old seemed suddenly not too ghastly a prospect. In fact, it could be fun if you did it in the company of the person you most loved. Janey thought of David and knew that to be without him, even on this happy family occasion, was like being only half alive.

  She smiled quickly, to drive away the stupid lump in her throat, the stinging behind her eyes. She said, ‘I’m lucky, too.’

  It was a splendid evening. The dinner was perfect, the champagne delicious, there were roses on the table, a few telegrams from friends, and Bill made the perfect speech. In fact, it was Bill and Tania who made the evening. But then, thought Janey, watching them laughing and flirting together, teasing her parents, charming the waitress, Bill and Tania were the sort of people, glamorous and vital, who would turn any occasion into a memorable celebration.

  * * *

  The next morning Janey was wakened from sleep by the telephone ringing by her bed. Muzzily, she stretched out a hand and picked up the receiver. Muzzily, she said, ‘Hello.’

  A male voice said, ‘Are you asleep?’

  After a little pause, Janey said, ‘David?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Eight o’clock. I’m sorry to wake you, but I thought, perhaps … I mean, if it’s all right … I might drive down and have lunch with you all. And then I could drive you back to London and you wouldn’t have to catch the train. Would that be a good idea?’

  ‘Oh, David, the best!’

  ‘Your parents won’t mind me horning in?’

  ‘They’ll be thrilled.’

  ‘How did the party go last night?’

  ‘It was a tremendous success. The Cressingtons are here. He was my father’s best man. He’s got a glamorous wife and they’re really super. Oh, David, I can’t think of anything nicer. Ring off now, and get into the car and start driving.’

  ‘I’ll be there about one.’

  ‘We’ll wait for you.’

  Waiting for David, the morning seemed endless. She spent it eating a slow breakfast, and packing her case, and then walking up to the village shop to buy a Sunday paper. Her parents had gone to church and returned about twelve, and the Cressingtons joined them, and they all went into the bar for an aperitif, but Janey stayed outside, near the front door, so that she would see David the moment his car drew up outside the hotel. The day which had started brightly had degenerated sadly into rain, but that didn’t matter. It was a beautiful day because David was on his way to her.

  He came, as he had said he would, just before one. She went out and they met on the steps and he kissed her, and he was wearing her favourite shirt, and a cashmere pullover and light fawn trousers which made his legs look very long and lean. She was very proud of him. She took him into the bar, and he had brought flowers for her mother, and a bottle of champagne for her father; and when she had introduced him to Tania and he had turned away for a moment to tell Mr Ashcroft what he would like to drink, Tania hissed in Janey’s ear, ‘Is that the one?’ and Janey made shushing noises and nodded her head furiously, and Tania mouthed ‘He’s smashing!’ and they both began to laugh like a pair of schoolgirls.

  * * *

  After lunch, when everyone else had gone off to pack, she and David went for a little walk, up on to the hill behind the village. It was still raining, but the wind had got up and the showers came in gusty squalls and blew Janey’s hair all over her face and whipped a healthy glow into David’s cheeks. And when they came to the top of the hill they found an abandoned cottage with a stream running through the garden and an old mill wheel, and because it had stopped raining for a moment, they sat, side by side, on an old log which happened to be lying around, and listened to the sound of rushing water and the shiver of the wind in the trees, and there didn’t seem to be any need to make conversation.

  After a while, Janey said, ‘Perhaps we’d better get back. I have to say goodbye to my parents before they go …’ But he put his hand on her arm, restraining her. She looked into his face and something that she saw there made her ask, ‘What is it?’

  He frowned. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘About something important?’

  ‘Yes. Important. Yes, it is important.’

  She waited. ‘Do you want to tell me, or do you just want to go on thinking?’

  ‘I have to tell you, because it’s about you.’ He leaned down to pick up a handful of small pebbles. As he spoke he played with them, dropping them from one hand to the other. ‘It’s about you, and my own parents, and your parents and, in a roundabout way, the Cressingtons. It’s about a small boy listening to his parents quarrelling through the wall, or running out into the garden, and putting his hands over his ears so that he wouldn’t hear them shouting at each other. And after the divorce, going from one to the other, listening to long tales of woe, trying not to take sides. And it’s about seeing your parents today and realising that after twenty-five years they still laugh at the same jokes. And it’s about the Cressingtons. But they’ve got it too, that magic which ought to exist between married people, and which I was beginning to think simply didn’t exist.’

  ‘Oh, David.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with boyhood traumas or cynicism. It’s just that you get asked to some wedding, and there are white veils and morning coats and all the right hymns, and a month later you’re asked for dinner and everything’s fine; and then a couple of months later you meet them again, and she’s griping because he’s late at the office, and he’s griping because she won’t give up her job, or she won’t get a job or something. There’ll be some idiotic bone of contention, and they’ll be tearing each other apart over it. And then in a couple of years, likely as not, they’re separating or splitting up, and all you can pray is that there aren’t any children to get fouled up in the works.’

  She did not at once reply to all this. It was difficult to think of anything to say. After a little she sighed and said, ‘I had no idea you felt as strongly as this.’

  ‘I never told you. And I never wanted it to end like that with us. I wanted it to go on for a long long time. And I wanted it to start like the Cressingtons. He’s old enough to be her father, and he’s been married before, I know, but still, they’ve got something special going for them. They look at each other and it’s like there’s nobody else in the room. And even if he’s talking to you, his eyes keep going back to her, as though he had to keep reassuring himself of his own good fortune. They don’t hide their love away as though it were something to be ashamed of. They don’t spend their time finding stupid nit-picking issues to quarrel over.’ As he spoke his face was very serious, a frown furrowed between his darkly-marked brows. But now, looking down at her, he suddenly smiled. ‘After we’re married, you won’t go looking for nit-picking issues, will you?’

  Janey said faintly, ‘I wouldn’t know one if I saw one.’

  ‘We will get married, won’t we?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I’d have asked you months ago, but I had to be sure of my stupid self.’

  ‘You’re sure now?’

  ‘Never been more certain about anything.’

  ‘It’s the same with me.’

  ‘Then I’ll take you back to London and buy you a great big vulgar engagement ring. And we’ll break the news to our respective families.’

  ‘But not today. Let’s keep it to ourselves for today.’

  ‘All right. Whatever you say.’

  It began to rain again, but they never noticed. He pulled her into his arms and pressed his cheek against hers and the rain ran down his hair on to her face, and his old tweed jacket smelled of peat smoke, and she knew it would always remind her, that smell, of this moment, when she was filled with more happiness than she had known in her life before.

  * * *

  When they got back to the hotel, her parents were on the verge of departing. They were only waiting for Janey and David to return, they said, and Janey’s mother looked at David and then at Janey, and then back at David again, but Janey said nothing. She just hugged her mother, and said it had been the best weekend she had ever spent. And the Ashcrofts got into their car without any more delay, and sped away, arms waving goodbye from the two rolled-down windows. And Janey and David waved back, watching until the car turned the corner and was out of sight.

  David looked at her. ‘We should start off, too. Are you packed and ready?’

  ‘Yes. My cases are in the hall.’

  ‘I’ll get them.’

  ‘I’ll just go up and say goodbye to Bill and Tania.’

  ‘Yes, you do that, and I’ll load my car.’

  Indoors, the hotel was heavy with the slumberous Sunday afternoon. From some distant lounge the television could be heard, and in the back kitchen someone clashed beer crates around. Janey went upstairs two at a time, and along the passage to the Cressingtons’ room. She knocked and Tania called, ‘Come in’; Janey opened the door and saw Tania, alone, occupied in packing what looked like four suitcases at the same time. Since lunch she had changed into her jeans and her long hair was tied back into a careless tail and secured with a piece of pink wool.

  ‘Janey!’

  ‘I just came to say goodbye.’

  ‘Bill’s gone off to see an old friend who lives nearby. He’s left me to cope with all the horrible packing.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t you hate the end of weekends?’

  They had said, let’s keep it to ourselves for today, but finding Tania alone suddenly prompted Janey to break this resolution. Tania, of all people should be told about herself and David. After all, the Cressingtons, as a couple, had provided the catalyst that had finally opened David’s eyes, and given him the courage to face the truth that marriage was not necessarily synonymous either with boredom or disaster. She took a deep breath and began, ‘I’ve got something to tell you …’

  But that was as far she got, because Tania interrupted her. ‘I’ve got something to tell you, too.’ Janey waited, taken unawares by the other’s abrupt tone of voice. Tania sat on the edge of the bed. She said, ‘I wasn’t meant to tell you, but I like you too much, and after yesterday, and the weekend and everything, for some reason I feel as if I’ve known you all my life. And I hate lying to people I like.’ Janey stared at her. Tania looked up and said, ‘We’re not married. That’s all. We’re just not married.’

  Janey felt her face drop in sheer disbelief. ‘You … you mean …?’ her voice tailed off into nothing.

  Tania nodded. ‘Just that. We’re not married.’

  ‘But …’ she thought of Bill. ‘But he adores you. You adore each other. You told me yesterday. Why not be married?’

  ‘It just never comes up.’

  ‘But he’s divorced, isn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Janey felt cold with shock. ‘But you want to be married to him, Tania, surely. Don’t you want that?’

  ‘I’m not even sure of that. We seem to have just slipped into a situation that’s beyond both of us.’ She frowned. ‘Don’t look so miserable. You mustn’t be unhappy. I only told you because, like I said, I hate lying to people I like. But don’t say anything to your parents, or Bill will kill me.’

  ‘Of course I won’t. But, Tania … what’s going to happen to you both?’

  ‘I haven’t any idea.’ For a frightening moment Janey thought that Tania was going to cry. But she was wrong, because the next instant Tania was smiling. Once more her lovely face lit up, artless, the eyes such a bright and shining blue. ‘Anyway, now you know. I’m glad you do. And what were you going to tell me?’

  ‘Oh. It’s gone right out of my head. It couldn’t have been very important. I really came to say goodbye.’

  ‘We’ll see each other again.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  They kissed, gave each other a hug. Tania went back to her packing and Janey left her, closing the door between them. Outside, she stood for a moment, she felt shaken, incapable, as though the ground had given way beneath her feet. Without seeing where she was going, she went down the Turkish-carpeted corridor, past the lift and the potted palm and started down the stairs. On the turn of the staircase, she stopped. David was waiting for her in the hall. As she appeared above him, he looked up.

  ‘Did you see them?’ he asked.

  ‘Just Tania.’ She descended to his side. ‘Bill’s out seeing a friend.’

  ‘What did Tania have to say for herself?’

  Janey stopped on the bottom stair. Her eyes were level with David’s. She said, ‘Nothing. Just goodbye.’

  It was the first lie she had ever told him. But, in his car and heading back for London, she promised herself that one day she would tell him the truth. Maybe next week. Or the week after that. But not today. Today was too soon.

  Skelmerton

  I heard the boy before I saw him. The reason for this was a sea mist which had come in from the east like a cloud of grey smoke, sliding along the sand as though it were being blown beneath a door; cloaking with alarming speed the sea, the sky, the beach, the dunes. What had been a world of bright spring sunshine was blotted out by a fog which tasted of salt. The sparkling waves, racing across the sand on the flood tide, were reduced to a sullen, distant booming. Inland the mist poured in and devoured the pleasant landscape of brown plough and green pasture and beech trees, just coming into leaf. It was suddenly very cold.

  I was on horseback. In case this sounds rather grand, I must explain quickly that the horse was a shaggy pony, called Daisy, at least three sizes too small for me, belonging to a small girl called Isobel. Isobel, on being sent to boarding school, came to me close to tears to ask if I would sometimes exercise Daisy for her. Otherwise Daisy would get fat, would eat too much, go off her legs and finally explode. Isobel didn’t say so in so many words, but her agonised tones led me to understand that nothing was beyond disastrous belief.

  I promised that I would do as she asked, and accordingly bicycled up two or three times a week, captured Daisy in what always seemed to be the most distant corner of a field, saddled her up in her shabby equipage and took her for a decorous ride. By ‘decorous’ I mean that we didn’t gallop along the shore pretending to be a television commercial, nor did we jump five-barred gates, but it was a pleasant way of passing an afternoon and we both enjoyed it.

  Anyway, there we were, on an early April afternoon riding along the sands when the mist came in. Or ‘fret’ as they call it in Northumberland. Daisy, being Northumbrian born and bred, was no more spooked by the fret than I was, but continued placidly on her way until we came to the rocks which mark the end of the bay.

  We could not see these rocks, but there was the tang of seaweed, and the hiss and rumble of the flood tide moving in beneath the cliff. Fulmars nested on these shallow cliffs and the clammy air was rent with their strange cries. Daisy splashed through a deep sand pool and up on to the hard sand on the other side. The cliffs reared up before us, sinister in the fog, and I said to Daisy, ‘This is as far as we come,’ and started to turn her when we heard the cry. It could have been a fulmar. I stopped and listened, and it came again.

  ‘Hello–o–o …’

  Daisy’s ears pricked. We stared into the fog, saw nothing.

  ‘Where are you–ou–ou?’

  ‘Here!’ I called back, and my voice sounded unfamiliar and puny and was lost in the echoes of the cliff face.

  There came a scramble of falling stones. Daisy, uneasy of the unknown, whickered anxiously. I laid a hand on her neck, and her shaggy coat, beneath my palm, was beaded with damp. We waited, both straining our eyes and ears.

  A movement through the fog; another stone rattled over rock, and the next moment, as though from nowhere, a figure appeared, took shape, not ten feet from where we stood. A small boy wearing jeans and a blue sweater, apparently soaking wet and totally alone.

  ‘I couldn’t see you,’ he said reproachfully. ‘I heard you coming, but I couldn’t see you at all.’

  ‘Are you lost?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t till the mist came in, but I am now.’ He was perhaps eight years old, not particularly tough-looking but quite self-possessed.

  ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes, I came down for a walk. Mrs Skelmerton said it would be all right, but not to be too long. But then I found some crabs in a rock pool and I was looking at them, and the next thing I knew it was all horrible and foggy.’