‘Well, that’s good,’ said Jillie, thinking that if anyone ever considered taking Laura’s place in Tom Knelston’s life she would have a very hard time of it. ‘Look, if you change your mind about the party – here’s the address.’ She scribbled it down on one of the paper napkins.
Walking back to his flat, Tom thought about Jillie.
He realised she was the first girl he had noticed as a girl, since – well, since. He decided she was attractive, with her gleaming straight brown hair, her rather dark green eyes, and her curvy smiley mouth with one tiny dimple tucked underneath it. Large dimples reminded him too much of Laura’s, but this small one was all right. She was tall, and very slim, again suitably different from Laura, and he liked her voice, which was slightly husky and low-pitched.
Alice lay on the small bumpy bed, curled into a ball of misery, pulling the blanket over her head, and started to cry. That Philip, who she loved so much and had thought loved her, could do this awful thing, deliver this cruel ultimatum. Oh, she had heard of men doing it before, of course, but if anyone had told her Philip would … !
‘Alice,’ he’d said. ‘I am very fond of you and I love being with you. But you’re saying you won’t have sex with me unless I tell you I want to marry you. Is that what you’re saying?’
She had nodded, terrified at what he might say next.
‘Well,’ he said, turning away from her, onto his back, ‘we might have a bit of a problem. Why, for God’s sake? I thought you said you loved me?’
If only she hadn’t; if only she hadn’t let it slip out as she stopped kissing him just for a moment, loving not just him, but the way he kissed her, pushing her into so many sensations, new, overwhelming, enjoying the feel of his hands on her, longing for more, knowing she mustn’t. It had made it all so much worse.
‘I do,’ she said. ‘I do love you.’
‘Well then, why not?’
‘Because – because it’s wrong. Having sex before you’re married is wrong. It ought to be – well, special.’
‘Alice, if we have sex it will be very special indeed.’
‘That’s not what I mean. I mean, it would cheapen it. It wouldn’t be important enough. I’m a virgin, Philip, you know I am. I’m scared.’
‘Oh, Christ.’ He sat up, looked down at her. ‘You’re scared of getting pregnant. Is that it? Because I swear you won’t. I’ve got some rubber johnnies, of course I have. You don’t have to worry, Alice. I’ll take care of you, I won’t let that happen. So if that’s all it is – come on, Alice, trust me –’ He lay back down again, started playing with her breasts. Somehow she pushed his hand away.
‘Philip, no. I’m sorry. I can’t. That’s not all I’m scared about. I’m scared that it doesn’t mean as much to you, and I don’t think it does. I thought – I thought you loved me.’
‘I’m very fond of you, Alice. I’ve gone out with you longer than I’ve ever gone out with anyone before. What more do you want? You’re not suggesting I should ask you to marry me, are you? Alice, really!’ He sounded almost amused. ‘Even if I thought I might want to marry you, how could I know? How could you know, for that matter? Look, we’re only doing something very natural. It’s not wrong. It’s no more wrong than the rest of what we’ve been doing this afternoon.’
She was silent. He sighed and sat up again.
‘You’re absurdly young for your age, you know that? You’re a child. I hadn’t realised. Well, I’m sorry, Alice, but there is no way I’m going to lie to you and say I want to marry you just to get into your knickers. At least I’m honest. You’ll have to find someone else, someone more high-minded, to share all your ridiculous hang-ups. So – very sadly, Alice, I think we should go our separate ways. I’m on duty in an hour anyway. I’ll go and get a meal and you should get back to the nurses’ home and – well, have a good look at yourself. The world’s changing, Alice. It’s not the same as when your mother was a girl.’
He leaned over and kissed her, then stood up, started pulling on his clothes. She lay, watching him, somehow managing not to cry.
The party was quite dreadful. If Tom hadn’t experienced many similar ones over the years, he would have been shocked. The hall had been decorated with balloons and paper chains and a rather sparse Christmas tree, listing dangerously to the left. There were a few bottles of red wine, some beer, and a lot of almost empty plastic cups. Everyone was very drunk. Tom had several times already been dragged onto the dance floor by a series of girls, each more drunk than the last, and tried to follow their increasingly random steps.
He had arrived late, at eight o’clock, and was already, at nine, wondering how soon he could escape. He stood now, a refugee from the dance floor, nursing a plastic glass of warm bitter, smiling at everyone he knew, agreeing it was a very good party, and occasionally sharing in the relief of some more serious conversation about how the Labour Party would be fine and they’d get in again: no one was going to let the Tories undo all the good that had been done in the last five years.
Finally, at nine thirty, he decided he would slip away and was just making for the door when a young man barred his way, held out his hand and said, ‘Jim Dunne, Islington Gazette. Can I talk to you? One of the men here said I should ask you for an interview.’
‘I’m surprised you value his opinion,’ said Tom with a grin. ‘I’m not very important.’
‘He seemed to think you would be. Would that be your wish for yourself, in the New Year?’
‘I – I suppose so. Yes. It’s such a wonderful party. Look at the fine politicians we have. So how can we fail? The Welfare State, education, and of course the National Health Service, all looking after people from the cradle to the grave. Of course I want to be part of it. And to have a voice in it.’
‘Do you think people need looking after? Can’t they look after themselves?’
‘I think a lot of them need help,’ said Tom, choosing his words with care. ‘There are still too many inequalities, too much shameless exploitation of working people.’
‘What do you do, Tom?’
‘I’m a solicitor. I work for a firm that does a lot of legal aid work, giving representation to people who could never normally afford it. And I do a twice-weekly session at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau.’
‘So what would your next step be? Would you hope to be selected as a candidate? Who would you model yourself on?’
‘Oh – Nye Bevan, of course. He’s done the most incredible things for this country and its people. He’s not just a visionary, he makes the visions come true.’
‘Right.’ Jim Dunne put his notebook away. ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful, Tom. Keep me posted on your progress.’
‘Alice, do stop crying,’ said Jillie, her patience just slightly tested as the hour for her guests’ arrival drew nearer and Alice continued to demand her full attention.
‘I know it’s awful for you, but I really must get on a bit now. I haven’t started on the mince pies and I need to ring my cousin Dan –’
‘I thought it was Josh who was coming.’
‘He is, Dan’s another cousin. He’s making the punch and I have to ask him to get some more rum. Then there’s all the cheese to put out and …’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Alice, blowing her nose. ‘Really sorry. Look, I’ll do the mince pies, it’ll take my mind off it all a bit. Just as long as you do think I did the right thing –’
‘I really do,’ said Jillie, moving towards the larder door before Alice could collapse in a heap on her again. ‘Now look, here’s the pastry, the mincemeat’s in those jars. I got it at Selfridges, so it should be all right, and I’ve already got the oven at the right temperature. I’ll start chopping the fruit for the punch – oh, there’s the door now, that’ll be Dan, so too late to get any more rum.’
Alice only planned to stay at the party for a short time – Jillie wouldn’t let her duck out altogether, saying it would do her good. She had never felt less festive and she looked awful, she thoug
ht, as she studied her ravaged face. She had a quick bath in Jillie’s bathroom, and pin-curled her hair, put on the dress she’d bought specially for the party. It was a waste not to wear that, a navy taffeta that made her eyes look bluer still. By the time she’d put on some foundation and some mascara and some coral lipstick, which she also dabbed on her cheeks, she had to admit she didn’t look too bad.
She ran down the stairs and bumped into Dan, who was carrying the huge silver punch bowl into the dining room. He gave an appreciative wolf whistle.
‘You look lovely, Alice,’ he said and suddenly life didn’t seem quite so bad.
Tom felt less depressed after his encounter with the journalist. He always enjoyed talking about the party and what it had done for the country. He felt that not enough people recognised it. And it was very nice to hear that other members – all right, only local ones – thought he had a future within it. Maybe he did. Maybe he should be more pushy.
He looked at his watch. Only just ten. If he went home now, he’d never be able to go to sleep. In fact, he felt rather alert and psyched up as Betty Foxton from Pemberton’s used to say. Dear Betty, he missed her and her mothering, which had increased after Laura died. He had no one to mother him now, or even care about him; it formed a huge part of his loneliness.
The people downstairs in his house were having a party. They’d asked him, but they really weren’t the sort of people he’d want to party with. The man was an estate agent – who Tom regarded with almost as much suspicion as he did the landlords they worked for – and his wife was a secretary to some civil servant who were all, in Tom’s view, in spite of their supposed neutrality, Tories. They all went to public school for a start. It was either home or walking the streets, a dismal choice. And then he remembered Jillie Curtis, and her invitation to her party. Could he go? All those posh people, but maybe – you never knew – he might meet an influential champagne socialist.
He stood still, trying to decide, and then a bus came along that said Highbury Road and that seemed like fate giving him a nudge. Taking a deep breath, he got on it.
Josh Curtis, Jillie’s other cousin, was on the same bus. Unlike Tom, he was keenly looking forward to getting to the party. It wasn’t just that it would be fun, and he liked his aunt and uncle very much, and Jillie too, but it would be absolutely packed with the sort of important and influential people he could use as future contacts.
The Daily News, the paper he worked for, was a middle-market broadsheet, edited by Harry Campbell who had been raised and trained on some of the finest newspapers in Fleet Street; and the Daily News, very much Harry’s creation, was hugely admired. His proprietor, the eccentric Scottish millionaire Jarvis McIntyre, who had bought it as an ailing weekly just after the war, was determined to produce a first-class daily and had given him his head; and Harry had hired an extraordinarily talented team. A picture editor, who had poached half a dozen of the best photographers in Fleet Street and then displayed superbly the rich haul of pictures they supplied him with every day; a news editor with an incredible talent for giving every major story some unexpected twist; a fashion editor who saw her job as something of a daily war in itself, to be waged against every other fashion editor in the business; and a bank of writers, some staff, some freelance, whose words were not only devoured by the paper’s readers, but also quoted and re-quoted in every weekly periodical, and most news programmes on the BBC.
It was, in its politics, slightly right of centre. Its political editor, Clive Bedford, was renowned for his extraordinary ability to express a complex argument in, at the most, two comparatively brief sentences; and its sports writers were the envy of even the tabloids. Most important of all, Harry Campbell had that most precious of editorial skills: he knew what his readers were thinking almost before they did. He understood their dreams and aspirations, recognised their fears.
At a time when circulations were measured in millions, the Daily News was running out in front with the best of them, behind the Daily Mirror and the invincible Express of Lord Beaverbrook, but giving the other popular mid-field papers, the Mail, the News Chronicle, the Manchester Guardian and the Sketch, a very good run for their money.
Josh knew he was lucky to be on the Bedford team. He was extremely ambitious, he wrote well, and had a talent for ferreting out a story that makes an excellent journalist out of a good one. After a year of working for the paper, he was only just beginning to relax and not expect to be fired every day.
Alice was just deciding she could slip away. The party was at full throttle, everyone was quite drunk, and although she’d had not too bad a time, and even felt almost cheerful for a bit, it was wearing off now and she really wanted to creep under the bedclothes in her room at the nurses’ home, do a bit more crying and go to sleep. The violent emotion had left her terribly tired. Also, she had just drunk at least three glasses of champagne and they had had a very strong effect.
She looked at her watch. Nearly eleven. She excused herself from the rather earnest spotty chap she’d been talking to and went upstairs to find her things. There was a bus in ten minutes from the end of the road, she’d catch it easily if she left now.
She was just crossing the hall when Jillie appeared.
‘Oh, Alice, you can’t leave now. That handsome boy who’s been mooning after you all night was just asking where you’d gone.’
‘Jillie, I don’t want to talk to any boys, however handsome. Sorry. It’s been lovely and thank you, but I’ll miss my bus.’
‘All right. Oh, but look, he’s waving at you, you might at least say goodbye.’
Tom stood outside number five Channing Road, and decided there was no way he could go in. It was a huge detached four-storeyed house, with wide steps running up to the front door. Through the unshuttered windows of the hall he could see small groups of people chatting and laughing. He would have to confront them before he got into the party itself. There was no way Jillie was going to answer the door. He’d just go back – it had taken up some time at least. At that moment a car pulled up and four people got out of it, a boy and three girls; they looked at him. ‘You coming in?’ said one of the girls. ‘Good, we’re not the only latecomers.’ And she virtually pushed him up the steps and rang the bell, so that he was at the front when the door opened.
And by some miracle it was Jillie who stood there; she smiled at him and said, ‘Tom, how lovely that you’re here, come in, come in, and you lot too, of course, better late than never. Alice, look who’s here – it’s Tom Knelston. You remember him, don’t you? Now you can’t leave for a bit. Get Tom a drink and introduce him to a few people.’
‘I’m sure you don’t remember me,’ said Tom helplessly, but Alice smiled, the pretty smile that he did remember, and said, ‘Yes, of course I do. How lovely to see you. Come on in, give me your coat.’
‘You look as if you’re leaving,’ said Tom. ‘And I—’
‘Well, I was, but I’ve just missed the bus, and there isn’t another for an hour. What would you like to drink? There’s beer and a bit of rum punch left and lots of rather cold red wine. The bar’s in here – follow me.’
And she took off her coat and set down the attaché case she was carrying, and led Tom through the huge hall, with its wide sweeping staircase and wood-panelled walls, into what was clearly a dining room, equally huge, with shelves of books and dark red floor-length velvet curtains at the windows. A long table, set with a white cloth covered with wine stains but no bottles of wine, a great many bottles of beer, and an enormous silver bowl with a ladle which was actually empty apart from a few rather sorry-looking bits of fruit.
‘Oh dear,’ said Alice. ‘Looks like it’s beer.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Tom. ‘I’ve been drinking beer already anyway.’
‘Gosh, you’ve been to another party, have you? How smart.’
‘Not very,’ said Tom. ‘It was given by the local Labour Party.’
‘Goodness,’ said Alice. ‘You must tell Jillie’s parents.
They’ll be frightfully impressed, they’re great Labour voters.’
‘Yes, Jillie did tell me that.’
‘We’ll go and find them in a minute. Now there’s food in the kitchen and I do know there’s lots of that left. Are you hungry?’
Tom suddenly realised he was. He followed her and found himself in some kind of new, exotic country with hundreds of people, it seemed, some very familiar, others more vaguely so. He spotted at least two cabinet members, one from each party, several lesser MPs who he remembered from the conferences, a couple who had starred in a series of musical comedies on the screen and another actor he had seen in a rather mediocre thriller. He also recognised one famous actor he had actually seen at the Old Vic and a distinguished novelist he recognised from the cover of his books. All of them talking, laughing, drinking, drawing one another aside from time to time, to reveal – he imagined – some confidence or other, kissing or embracing one another every so often for no apparent reason, pulling one another from group to group. Almost all of them good-looking, the women beautifully and, in many cases, imaginatively dressed. There was a lot of red to be seen, and a great many bosoms, much pairing of low necklines and dazzling jewellery, and high-piled hair, or frequently on the younger members of the cast – for it was, he decided, exactly like watching a play – long untamed Pre-Raphaelite curls. The men were colourful as he had never seen men before, in velvet jackets and flamboyant ties, many of them of the bow variety, waving cigars and what were clearly glasses of brandy about, all smiling benignly at him as he passed.
Everything was as different as it could possibly be from the party he had just left.
Tom was oddly easy to talk to, Alice discovered. They sat on the stairs and he ate an incredibly large number of sausages and an equally incredible number of mince pies; he obviously didn’t feed himself properly, she thought, her tender heart lurching. He talked about his new life in London without Laura. He loved his new job, he said, and felt he was doing something really useful. Then he suddenly stopped. ‘Sorry. This isn’t party talk, is it?’
A Question of Trust Page 20
