Encounters

by Barbara Erskine

  But later, as the party finished he had offered to walk her to her car, opening the door for her as she stepped out of the hot stuffy building.

  ‘I can never understand how people can lock themselves up in smoky rooms like that when it’s so lovely outside,’ she commented over her shoulder to him as he followed her, talking wildly to hide her nervousness and stretching her arms above her head, shaking her hair to rid it of the smell of smoke.

  He smiled. ‘It can’t be the company tonight. It must have been your food.’

  ‘Flatterer.’ She walked ahead of him across the asphalt. Her car was parked with its nose almost in the dark sootiness of a privet hedge.

  She paused and turned to look at him and hesitated for a moment. He was looking down at her, a frown on his face. Wasn’t he going to say anything? The silence lengthened. Desperately she spoke up again, her voice sounding too loud in her own ears. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you around?’ she hazarded, with an attempt at a casualness she didn’t really feel. She wanted so much to see him again.

  ‘Oh I hope so.’ He took her hands in his and held them tightly, his eyes seeking hers in the dark.

  He was going to kiss her. Susannah took a small step towards him, raising her face imperceptibly to his, but he released her quickly, as if afraid, and stepped back. ‘Drive carefully, Susie,’ he called as he turned away.

  She stood still for a moment, unbelieving, disappointed, then she began to grope in her purse for her car keys.

  The next day Susannah let herself into the office with a pass key she had been given and went into the room where the party had been. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. Dirty glasses and plates, overflowing ashtrays, crumbs trodden into the carpet, everywhere the stale smell of exhaled smoke and musty conversation. She threw open the windows and began to clean up, plodding methodically through the job, stacking, scraping, emptying. Resolutely she did not allow herself to think of the tall handsome man who had talked to her so caringly the evening before and who had left her so abruptly.

  It was a long time before she realized that he was there. He was watching her through the glass door of the office. She took a deep breath to steady herself and raised a hand in greeting.

  He opened the door. ‘I had to come to collect some papers. Do you want some help?’

  She smiled. ‘I’d love some, but it’s a dreadful mess in here.’

  He shrugged. ‘For you, ma’am, I’d brave the Augean stables if you asked.’

  They had both laughed so easily together and it had taken her half the time with his helping her.

  ‘Susie, I want to see you again.’ At last he had said it. ‘Soon. Tomorrow, if you can.’

  And now he had come. Susannah watched him looking round her room, hungry for details of her life. She smiled again, understanding. She longed to know about him, too. But not yet. She liked him still to be a little mysterious; a stranger whom destiny had brought to her door. He told her that he had booked a table, she picked up her coat and they went out together.

  They drove through the bright evening to a restaurant she had never been to before, she talking, a little puzzled by his long silences, and intrigued; he wanting to touch her, his hand straying every now and then to hers, not really listening at all, just happy to be close to her. He was already certain in his own mind, although she didn’t know it, that what he wanted was a future linked indissolubly with that of this exquisite, fragile girl.

  It was a dark, intimate restaurant, the tables barely lit by smoking night lights, hidden from one another by high-backed settles. Susannah sat opposite him and every now and then, as they talked, his hand would stretch out and gently, with a finger only, touch hers across the deep-crimson cloth.

  ‘Would you like to come in?’ She looked up and smiled at him at the door of her flat when he brought her home later.

  For a moment his gaze met hers. Imperceptibly he nodded, but he said. ‘I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ Her voice was gentle. She reached out to him and he came.

  He watched as she filled the kettle at the sink and plugged it in. ‘There’s a drink if you’d like,’ she smiled at him, but he shook his head.

  ‘Coffee’s fine.’

  She knew he wanted her.

  In the sitting room he smiled and put down his coffee cup and looked at her so long she began to feel strange – almost dizzy – there was such an intensity of feeling in his eyes. Then he put his arms around her and she let him kiss her.

  She heard the little clock beside her bed next door chime midnight. He heard it too. Gently he pushed her away. ‘Your coffee’s getting cold,’ he whispered, inexplicably sad.

  She slipped to her knees on the soft carpet and sipped her coffee, leaning against his legs. His head was lying against the sofa back, his eyes closed in the lamplight. She couldn’t know that suddenly and unwillingly he was thinking of Annabel.

  Two days before, on the day of the party where he met Susannah, he and Annabel had at last bought the new wallpaper for their flat. She had chosen it and he was content to watch, knowing her eye for colour and her quiet taste. He had smiled at her fondly as she pulled out first this roll and then that until at last she had decided and turned to him for confirmation.

  ‘Are you going to help me do it?’ he asked as they paid for it, scrupulously half each.

  She nodded, ‘I’ll do the painting round it; you do the papering, Mark. Remember? You said you could do a better job than the men who did our bathroom and I seem to remember a small bet?’ Her dark hair was curling into her eyes and he had longed to push it back for her, but his arms, like hers, were loaded.

  They had worked hard and by mid-day she had painted a door and one strip of the paper was up.

  ‘It’ll dry flat,’ he murmured hopefully as she came to inspect his handiwork and she hadn’t criticized it.

  ‘It’ll be lovely,’ she had said. ‘I’ll go on painting while you’re at this party tonight. They shouldn’t allow office parties on Saturdays. Do you really have to go?’

  He hadn’t wanted to go. If he could have thought up an excuse he would have used it. But this time, this once it was important that he be there. ‘It has to be on a Saturday because the German delegates will be flying back to Frankfurt tomorrow. It’s boring, I know, but there might be some good contacts there.’

  ‘I know your kind of good contacts! Curvaceous, sexy Fräuleins!’ She smiled at him.

  That was the joke between them, just as when he said to her every so often, ‘One of these days you’ll marry one of the fat directors of that firm you work for, Miss Conway,’ and she would solemnly nod and compute their salaries on her fingers. She wouldn’t, of course. Mark and she might not be married, but he was the man in her life and had been for nearly five years.

  That afternoon when he was wrestling with the second strip of paper she had slipped out for a while.

  She walked slowly to the surgery, feeling the warm June sun on her hair, acutely aware of the colours and shapes of things in the road, as if her faint anxiety made her more alive. The waiting-room was nearly empty and it was barely fifteen minutes later before she was once more in the road. The test had been, against all probability, positive.

  This time she was thoughtful as she walked and she saw nothing of the summer trees. It was strange that she did not wonder at once what Mark would say. Perhaps because she knew instinctively that what had happened would in a way make no difference; her future, as it always had been, was in her own hands – her future and now that of the baby. Decisions, if they had to be made, were her job and she was not afraid of them. Not usually. Unnoticing she broke a twig off a lime tree as she passed and twirled the stem in her fingers.

  Mark and she were a partnership. They shared their lives and their home, but at the same time they respected each other’s rights as individuals. Whatever she decided – and she knew that ultimately he would say that the choice must be hers – he would respect her for it when she told him. If she told him. Sh
e snapped the twig abruptly and threw the pieces into the gutter.

  The future did not seem to be clear. There were so many aspects to face: to tell him, or not to tell him; to have it or not to have it; to have the child and then let it go perhaps, to someone else.

  She and Mark had never seriously considered marriage. Their relationship suited them both as it was and she knew he valued it for its freedom. But now?

  Her tongue suddenly tasted blood in her mouth, sharp and salty and she realized she had been chewing the inside of her cheek as she walked. She hadn’t done that since she was quite a little girl.

  She walked a long time before turning at last, as she began to feel tired, for home. Her only decision was that she would do nothing – not yet.

  Strangely she began to notice things again now; her heightened sense of perception had returned with that one meagre resolution – to do nothing, The trees were again brilliant in their cloak of summer green, the last of their blossom white and creamy, with bees clustering to suck, their buzz droning above the cars. As she turned back into the main road she saw a couple walking towards her. The girl, obviously pregnant, turned to the man and laughed up at him with such trusting joy in her face as they walked that Annabel found that she too was smiling. She hugged herself a little and against all reason felt ridiculously happy.

  Mark had left for the party at about six, not guessing anything, and Annabel, strangely contented, reached for her brush. ‘I’ll only look in at the party for an hour or two, and be back in time for supper,’ he said as he left.

  She stroked the paint onto the skirting board in long even strokes, concentrating on making the creamy ridges merge and glisten into a smooth flat strip. She almost decided to tell him when he came home. Something kept telling her that he would be pleased with her news. She pushed her dark hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist and easing her cramped position a little, painted on. Behind her the clock struck nine.

  Annabel stopped at last, finished cleaning her brushes and pressed the lid back onto the paint tin. She was exhausted but the painting was finished, all but the door. She could do that tomorrow. She glanced at the clock; it was after eleven. She frowned. Surely Mark should have been home long since?

  Shrugging she went to turn on the bath. They didn’t worry about each other as a rule. It was part of the way they lived. After all, office parties and office colleagues were a hazard they both lived with and on the whole ignored. It made for a free, happy relationship, and today’s news should – would – make no difference. She flung open the bathroom window and leaned out, taking a deep breath of the fragrant summer night and wondering idly if Mark were still there, and she felt a wave of pity at the thought of him, bored but dutiful, still making polite conversation to the delegation from Frankfurt.

  She was asleep when Mark got home. He let himself into the flat quietly and stood in the hall smelling the cloying tangy wet paint. Then, creeping into the kitchen he poured himself a glass of milk. He was restless, and he didn’t feel in the least bit sleepy. The bathroom was a little steamy still and rich with the scent of bath essence and talcum when at last he began to undress and he let it relax him deliberately, standing a long time looking down into the clear water as it ran into the bath, allowing the reflections and the swirling transparent bubbles to mesmerize and soothe him, making his mind go mercifully blank.

  Annabel was lying naked beneath the sheet, her dark hair tossed in a shadowy web on the pillow in the moonlight, an arm half across his side of the bed. He stood and gazed at her for a long while and then gently, so as not to wake her, he eased himself into bed.

  Leaving the coffee perking quietly on the stove the next morning Annabel pulled on her jacket and slipped round the corner to the shop. Hot rolls and the Sunday papers were their special treat each weekend and they took it in turns to go out and buy them.

  Mark was still asleep when she carried in the tray. She smiled at the sight of him so vulnerable with his face relaxed, half smiling in his dream. She set down the tray and dropped a kiss on the end of his nose. Lazily he opened his eyes and grinned up at her.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi. It was your turn, you know, but I went as you were so very asleep. What on earth time did you get in?’

  Remembering the events of the night before he pushed himself up in bed. ‘Midnight, I think.’ He hesitated guiltily.

  ‘It must have been a good party after all.’ She was breaking open a crusty bread roll, buttering it, unscrewing the jar of honey. There wasn’t any need to look at his face; she trusted him absolutely.

  ‘It was quite fun.’ He reached for the paper.

  ‘Did you have a look at my painting when you came in?’ She handed him the roll. This time, glancing up, she saw the look of guilt.

  ‘I came in so late, Annabel. I’ll go and see in daylight.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Not much to see, really; it’s just a bit fresher, that’s all.’ She felt absurdly hurt.

  They read and ate in silence for some time and then at last Annabel got up. She glanced at him again. ‘Are you going to get on with the papering? We could finish that room today, between us.’ She was collecting their plates.

  Mark glanced at his watch. ‘Annie, I’m sorry and I know it’s Sunday but I’ve got to slip back to the office this morning. I was supposed to bring some papers home yesterday and I forgot. I won’t be long.’

  He did not look at her as he spoke.

  She wandered into the kitchen when he had gone. She didn’t as a rule spend much time cooking, but today she wanted to do something special. She began to search through the cupboards and the fridge and then when she started to lay the table and set wine glasses she realized why. It was today, after a special meal, that she would tell him.

  The quiet happy assurance of the evening before had gone. That morning she had awoken early and lain in bed, gazing at the cool sunlight through the thin curtain, thinking. She had wanted to wake Mark then, tell him everything, ask what he wanted her to do, feel his comforting arms around her, but she had stopped herself in time. It wasn’t like her to want reassurance and she lay puzzled and a little frightened, watching the hands of the clock tick round until it was time to get up.

  He was late for lunch. She drew the cork from the wine bottle on her own and sipped a glass as she stirred the gravy, hypnotized by the circling creamy brown vortex beneath her spoon, thinking about Mark. When he came at last she could sense at once that something had happened and she knew she could not tell him now. He was elated and yet, as he refused to meet her eyes, in a strange way he was almost surly. She poured his wine, disappointed and watched him eat. Her own appetite had gone.

  ‘You’ve remembered Bernard and Joy’s dinner party tomorrow night?’ she said at last, to break the silence.

  He looked up and frowned. ‘Oh Annie, I can’t make it. I forgot to tell you. Something’s come up at the office. We shall be having a meeting till all hours, I’m afraid.’ He looked so ashamed as he spoke, tapping his knife on the plate until the gravy splashed across the cloth, that she shrugged her disappointment aside.

  ‘It can’t be helped. I know you’re very busy there at the moment. I think I’ll go though; I enjoy their evenings.’

  ‘Yes, you go. Enjoy yourself, Annie. Please.’ He was almost over eager. He put his hands on hers for a second. His skin was ice cold.

  Annabel didn’t enjoy the dinner party as much as she had hoped. She was too blatantly the odd one out; the single woman suddenly cast by the wives there in the role of predator. She might have laughed at the situation and flirted with the husbands deliberately if Mark had been there to egg her on; if Mark had known. But of course if Mark had been there she would not have been alone.

  She smiled to herself climbing into her car. He would laugh when she told him; and next time he would see to it that he was at her side, mocking and teasing, there to enjoy the jokes with her.

  She drove home fast, glancing at her watch. It was nearl
y midnight. He would be back by now. The flat would be warm and cosy, with Mark probably watching the late show on TV; perhaps a hot drink warming on the stove. She would tell him; now.

  She parked the car and ran upstairs to their door.

  ‘Mark?’ Her key turned impatiently in the lock. ‘Mark, I’m home.’ The flat was in darkness. Puzzled, she clicked on the light and glanced round. He wasn’t there. She went through to the bedroom to see if he was already asleep but the room was cold and empty. ‘Mark?’ she called again. ‘Mark?’

  For the first time she felt a tremor of unease.

  Susannah was sitting with her head resting sleepily against Mark’s knees. She was unbelievably happy. Still she could not bring herself to believe that this man could have fallen so deeply and so painfully in love with her so quickly. She was frightened too; vulnerable in her own sudden defencelessness. She felt his hand on her hair and she looked up at his face, strongly shaded in the lamp light as they smiled at each other. He set down his coffee cup and slowly pushing her head away he stood up and reached down for her hands. She let herself be led, trembling a little, into the bedroom. Deliberately he pulled back the counterpane and sat down on the blanket, still holding her hands, drawing her close so that she had to stand near him, her knees touching his. Gently he reached up to touch a curling tendril of her hair, which had fallen between her breasts.

  He felt overwhelmingly protective towards this girl. She was so fragile, so defenceless; she brought out in him a strange almost fatherly feeling; the need to look after her, a feeling which he had never experienced before with Annabel and which he found exciting and stimulating. It was undeniable. He stroked her breast, feeling her shiver a little at his touch and then slowly he pulled her down beside him on the bed.

  Annabel was sitting on the floor of the sitting room, her chin resting on her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. She had turned on the television for company but she wasn’t watching the screen. She had been deciding what to say to Mark. She could not carry the burden of her knowledge alone any more. He had to know. Now. She was uncertain and vulnerable and she needed him. She knew it was out of character and it was frightening to feel herself so undecided and exposed, but whatever his problems at the office, and ever since yesterday she had known that he had them, she knew he would help her. Her hot chocolate grew cold beside her and a skin formed on the surface as the minutes ticked by and she waited for him to come home.