A Sentence of Life
Page 42
He knew that he was right now. Only he hadn’t expected to see her today. “Willy, you didn’t have to.” He frowned. “I wouldn’t have minded. No, that’s not true. I would—do. But you could have told me. It would have been better.”
“I … what do you—mean?” She looked at him bleakly.
He moved over to the table. “You didn’t have to lie. Tom let it slip this morning. I didn’t notice at the time, but it stuck. Bleak hotel rooms, he said. Rooms.”
She moved an arm to her waist, but said nothing.
He couldn’t wait very long. As if aware of it, she began to speak. “I lost control. I … I’m so sorry, Jordan.”
She clutched her elbows in that old familiar gesture. He stirred.
He suddenly felt—good God, he wasn’t here to try her.
“Not for that,” he said. “Don’t be sorry for that. The point is …” He lost it. She was so clear to him—the Harrods suit, the angularity, the lifeless hairdo.
“Jordan, I know I betrayed you, but can’t you—can’t you?”
“What was there to betray?”
“Oh Jordan!”
“No no. I don’t blame you. Even if it was that stupid oaf—it was at least something. In a way, I’ve been a cuckold most of my life—a deserving cuckold. But I might have—might have then—hated you.”
She took a step forward. “Don’t you now?”
“No,” he said. “No, I don’t.”
“Is it too late then?”
“In that way, yes. Far too late.”
“But why? Why? Can’t we get it back? Can’t we at least try?”
“It wasn’t much.”
“It was it was!” she called out. “It was something!”
“Chitter-chatter, thin meals, chilled house, cotton wool and clean sheets. The fire always smoking.”
“Don’t! It wasn’t like that.”
“Yes it was.”
They were still. And then she said, “You never told me you didn’t like my cooking.”
He laughed. “Oh Willy.”
“I was weak, I know I was weak.”
He shook his head impatiently. “Leave it alone now, let it die.”
“But I thought you wanted to discuss …”
“Absolutely no.”
“I just—I don’t understand.”
“Well, that’s something.” He smiled and she smiled back tentatively, as one who knows she will never see the joke, so smiles quickly here and there, hoping to hit the right moment. A blind chance, but not, he thought, more unlikely than hitting an unseen blackbird in a fig tree.
“Jordan—Jordan, can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
She looked away from him and there was a flush on her cheeks. “Jordan, did you … I mean, June—did you, did you?”
“No, Willy, I did not.”
“Oh.” She opened her handbag and took out a handkerchief. She held it in her hand for a moment, then put it back again. She glanced up at him, as she snapped the catch. “Tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow.” He made up his mind. “Tomorrow you and I are going away. We’ll take the car and—”
“Oh darling, I’m so sorry. It’s out of commission, I’m afraid. It just started making an awful noise. The man said it would be a week at least.”
“We’ll hire one then.”
“But, but what about Georgia?”
“No. You fix that up.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Hillman …” She watched him. “Where are we going?”
“Brighton.”
“Brighton?”
“The city of sex murders and illicit love.”
“You’re joking?”
“Yes.”
She laughed tremblingly. “Where shall we really go?”
“Oh I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll just drive and see what happens.”
A Note on the Author
Julian Gloag was born and brought up largely in London. After graduating from Cambridge University, he spent several years in New York publishing. Following the publication of Our Mother’s House in 1963, he began to devote his full time to writing leading with the critically acclaimed A Sentence of Life (1966).
Discover books by Julian Gloag published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/JulianGloag
A Sentence of Life
Our Mother’s House
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain 1966 by Simon & Schuster
Copyright © 1966 Julian Gloag
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ISBN 9781448208524
eISBN: 9781448208531
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