The Men and the Girls

by Joanna Trollope

  Mr Winthrop had been a dealer in antique maps and prints. He dealt a little still, but mostly now he mended old clocks in a tiny creaking conservatory at the back of the house. He played big band music while he worked, the saxophones mingling with the hoarse blast of an electric fan heater which he kept going from dawn to dusk, except in summer. He showed Kate an alcove on the landing where a little old electric cooker stood for her use, with a cracked sink beside it. Then he showed her the bathroom she and Joss would have to share with him. Kate had not entered such a bathroom for a decade.

  ‘Who cleans this?’ she said to Mr Winthrop.

  ‘You do,’ he said, ‘if you care.’

  Her rooms, on the other hand, were quite cheerful. The light was cold, but there was plenty of it, and a previous tenant had almost covered a plainly violent wallpaper with cream emulsion. The furniture, though neglected, was Victorian and solid, and there were two comfortable chairs. Kate sat in one and tried to picture Joss in the other, with the electric fire burning cosily and a jug of flowers on the table. Telling Joss was one of the two major hurdles ahead. The other one was telling James.

  Mr Winthrop said he didn’t mind if she painted the rooms and changed the curtains. Kate made plans and wrote a list. She thought she and Joss might go shopping together for paint and curtain material, and she would borrow Christine’s sewing machine. Joss could paint her cupboard room any colour she liked, and cover it with her posters and photographs, and she could have an armful of Indian cushions on her bed to make it, by day, into a sofa. Perhaps Kate might afford a rug for her, too, and a brass lamp. Perhaps, on the other hand, the lamp would have to wait. Kate went out to the supermarket in Bridge Street and bought cleaning things, and a bucket, and a packet of blue-and-white disposable cloths. A sense of a new beginning filled her with elation.

  ‘I feel,’ she said to Mark Hathaway, half embarrassed at herself, ‘that I’m starting to tell the truth.’

  He offered to help her paint, in the evenings.

  ‘When I’ve told Joss.’

  ‘Joss,’ he said. He was very uncertain about Joss. What greater obstacle to a budding relationship could there possibly be than a girl of fourteen, a girl too old to send to bed and too young to send out into Oxford? ‘I hope she’ll like me,’ he said, meaning the opposite.

  ‘Of course she will,’ Kate said. She looked at Mark. His appearance was everything Joss would admire; so was his taste, his modern, fresh, fashionable taste.

  ‘It’s wonderful you’re coming,’ Mark said, ‘it’s just wonderful. You look different already, so much happier.’

  ‘I am,’ Kate said. She felt it. She couldn’t believe how happy it made her, in a simple, carefree way, to clean the windows and polish the furniture in Swan Street. Mark bought her a poster, a reproduction of a watercolour of a cane chair on a bare floor by french windows opening on to a southern landscape, hazyblue and gold. Kate was enchanted with it; it seemed a symbol, a symbol of her feeling that she was stepping out of some kind of restriction into an environment that wasn’t just free, but natural to her as well, natural to her age and personality. Only when she thought honestly about James, about how his life would be without her, did her spirits sink. She was going to hurt him, but not as much, she told herself firmly, brushing at the Swan Street carpet, as she would if she were going to stay.

  Walking back to Jericho one day, from one of these furtive visits to Swan Street, a car stopped beside Kate and the passenger door opened.

  ‘Kate!’ Julia said, leaning across from the driving seat. She was smiling, and wore a pair of dark glasses pushed up on her head in place of a hairband. Kate stopped to peer in.

  ‘You look quite different—’

  ‘Contact lenses,’ Julia said, laughing. ‘The new me.’

  ‘Hello,’ the twins shouted from the back seat. ‘Hello, Kate, hello, hello, Kate, hello—’

  She beamed at them. They wore yellow jerseys. ‘You look like ducklings.’

  ‘Get in,’ Julia said, ‘get in and I’ll drive you home.’

  ‘It’s fine, really, I’m only ten minutes—’

  ‘Come on. I haven’t seen you in ages, so much to tell you.’ She patted the passenger seat. ‘Why are you walking by Hythebridge Street anyway?’

  ‘Just a variation,’ Kate said, buckling her seat belt, her head bent.

  Julia put the car into gear and moved it into the traffic. ‘We were at the station. Weren’t we, boys? What were we doing at the station?’

  ‘The girl went on the train,’ George said, ‘that blue girl. You know.’

  Julia glanced at Kate. ‘I’ve succumbed to help at last. I think I’ve found the perfect person. She was nice, wasn’t she, boys?’

  ‘She was a bit fat,’ Edward said doubtfully.

  ‘But it’s rather cosy to be fat, isn’t it—’

  ‘And she had funny hair.’

  ‘Not very funny—’

  ‘It was fat hair.’

  ‘She had a blue jersey,’ George told Kate.

  ‘And fat hair.’

  ‘She was a dear,’ Julia said to Kate, ‘a farmer’s daughter from East Anglia. So capable, drives and everything. She was sweet to the boys. Wasn’t she, boys? She’ll be a life-saver, quite honestly, with me getting busier all the time and things picking up so quickly for Hugh. I mean, suppose the twins were ill?’

  Kate turned round to look at them. They grinned at her. ‘I never saw two chaps look less ill in my life.’

  ‘No, but suppose they were. There’s been a bout of chicken pox at their nursery school, Frederica’s been quite frantic, and they could be incubating it right now.’

  ‘All spotty,’ George said, opening his eyes wide.

  ‘Sam is spotty, isn’t he?’

  ‘Up his nose, he’s spotty—’

  ‘And,’ Edward said reverently, ‘inside his bottom.’

  ‘Lord,’ said Kate. She winked at them. They began to giggle.

  ‘I advertised for help,’ Julia said, ‘then I interviewed the best-sounding four, and this one was perfect. She’s called Sandy.’

  George said scornfully, ‘Sandy is a silly name.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. It’s a pretty name. It’s short for Alexandra. Now, Kate, tell me what’s up with you?’

  They were only a minute from Richmond Villa.

  ‘Nothing to compare with contact lenses and nannies—’

  Julia laughed. ‘Isn’t it absurd? Twenty-five years in specs and now I’ve got these, I think I must have been mad to have endured glasses all this time, but Hugh says he misses them—’ She sounded suddenly coy.

  The car slowed. ‘Come in,’ Kate said, turning to the twins again, ‘come in and see Joss.’

  ‘Joss!’ they clamoured at once, straining at their seat belts. ‘Joss! Joss!’

  ‘We really ought to get back,’ Julia said, ‘I’m expecting several calls—’

  ‘Just a quick cup of tea?’

  ‘Joss! Joss!’

  ‘All right,’ Julia said, relenting, switching off the engine. ‘Ten minutes. When Sandy comes, of course, I won’t know myself, all that lovely freedom.’ She smiled at Kate. She was quite extraordinarily pretty without her glasses. ‘Isn’t it exciting when life does this, just takes a lovely new turn when you’re least expecting it?’

  There was no Joss at Richmond Villa. The kitchen was empty, so was James’s study, and there was no point even looking in the neglected sitting-room because no-one was ever in there, except at Christmas. ‘My front room,’ James called it. The table in the kitchen was dotted with notes, weighted down by marmalade jars and cotton reels.

  ‘Darling,’ James’s note said, ‘am out with Hugh, seeing the lawyers. Back sixish. Hope refuge not too depressing.’

  ‘But you weren’t at the refuge, were you?’ Julia said, reading the note over her shoulder. ‘Wrong direction—’

  ‘Gone to the cinema,’ Joss’s note said, ‘back late.’

  ‘I forgot,’ Kate said. S
he turned to the twins. ‘I’m so sorry, twins. I forgot that Joss was going out to see a film with her new boyfriend.’

  ‘Wow,’ Julia said, ‘boyfriend!’

  ‘He’s an American. Lovely manners. Her – her first date, I suppose.’

  ‘Can you believe it! Little Joss.’ Julia looked at the twins. ‘Ten years and it’ll be you and girls, I suppose.’

  ‘Joss coming soon?’ George said hopefully.

  ‘Oh darling, I’m so sorry, but not for a long time. I quite forgot. I’ll find you a biscuit.’

  ‘Look,’ Julia said, ‘there’s another note.’ She pushed a scrap of paper at Kate. It said:

  Out to tea

  With old BB

  What a spree

  For ancient me.

  P.S. Gone in a taxi.

  ‘That’s Leonard,’ Kate said shortly.

  ‘Who’s BB?’

  Kate found a tin in a cupboard and bent down with it in front of the twins so that they could choose a biscuit.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘the heroine of Hugh’s programme.’

  ‘Oh,’ Julia said with emphasis, ‘her. The famous Miss Bachelor. I’m dying to meet her. What’s she like?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Haven’t you met her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It hasn’t arisen,’ Kate said, straightening.

  ‘Pink,’ Edward said in satisfaction, peering at the filling in his biscuit.

  ‘Sorry,’ Kate said, ‘not very health foody—’

  ‘Once in a while doesn’t matter,’ Julia said kindly. ‘Does it?’ She looked round the kitchen. Quite apart from the clutter, it had a forlorn look, as if no-one was paying it much attention. ‘Really Kate, isn’t it lucky that you have all your interests, with the household so preoccupied with its own concerns? To tell you the truth, I always thought I was perfectly happy being a mum at home, but, now these chances have come up, I really am appreciating being able to stretch my wings a bit. I feel terribly sorry for women who just can’t be themselves at all, don’t you? I mean, what would you do, Kate, if you really felt you were trapped?’

  At supper, James made a private resolution that he would tackle Kate later and confront her with her own fears. He decided this quite suddenly because she looked so haunted when she handed him a plate of one of her curious curries.

  ‘How nice,’ he said, to encourage her.

  Uncle Leonard scowled at his helping. He was in an exhibitionist humour, having been out of the house for the first time in over a year and having managed to upset Beatrice Bachelor’s sister-in-law by telling her she looked in the pink of health. He shook hot chilli sauce all over his curry and said he expected Joss was, at this moment, being raped in a multistorey car-park.

  Kate and James ignored him.

  ‘She looked really nice when she went out,’ James said. ‘I saw her.’

  ‘What was she wearing?’

  James thought. ‘Jeans, I think. And something white? The whole effect was much less lugubrious than usual.’

  ‘He seems nice,’ Kate said, thinking that she should have been at home herself, to admire Joss in her jeans and something white.

  ‘He called me sir,’ James said. ‘Amazing. He looked clean enough to eat off.’

  ‘That’s being American.’

  ‘Not eating this,’ Leonard said, pushing his plate away.

  James looked at it. ‘You’ve drowned it in firelighting fluid, that’s why.’

  ‘Cake. Full of cake. Battenburg.’ He pushed his chair back. ‘Not really hungry.’

  ‘Leave it, then,’ Kate said, bending her head. She was seized with a sudden, violent longing to be in Swan Street, away from this charade of meaningless talk and ritual. She pictured the table by the window, and the view down the gardens fading in the fading light, and craved it. She jabbed her fork against a pile of rice on her plate and then dropped it. ‘It isn’t up to much, I’m afraid.’

  James handed Leonard his stick.

  ‘You’re a rude and ungrateful old sod.’

  ‘That’s me,’ Leonard said, unrepentantly, heaving himself to his feet. ‘Old Beattie says I’m the original curmudgeon.’

  ‘There’s no call to sound so pleased about it.’

  ‘Hah!’ Leonard said. He limped to the door. Then he turned back for a moment. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Kate and crept out.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ James said, too. ‘I really am. He’s intolerable.’

  Kate shook her head. She was terribly afraid she was going to cry. She attempted to pick up her fork, but missed it, and it clattered off her plate on to the table. James stooped over her and put his arms round her shoulders.

  ‘Julia came,’ Kate said, seizing an excuse. ‘She came with the twins. She’s got contact lenses and they’re hiring a nanny—’

  ‘Come with me,’ James said. ‘Come into the study, and tell me all about it.’

  ‘You want to leave me,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’

  Kate sat in the swivel chair by his desk, and looked up at the plump young prince. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  James was sitting behind her in his usual chair, the chair he sat in to read the paper and to teach and, sometimes, to sleep in after lunch. He said, ‘Could you explain why?’

  His voice sounded careful, as if he were controlling himself. Kate heard him get up, and then she heard the hiss of gas as he turned on the fire, and then the soft plopping ripple of it igniting. ‘Tell me, Kate,’ James said. ‘Turn round and tell me.’

  She swung the chair. He was standing by the fire, slightly stooping, waiting for her.

  ‘I’ve changed,’ Kate said.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said. He crossed the hearthrug back to his chair and sat down in it, so that his profile was presented to her. ‘I wonder if it’s you, or me. I rather thought I had become too old for you. I mean,’ he said, looking up at her, ‘it’s not very jolly for you here, with me over sixty and Leonard so difficult. I’ve been thinking perhaps that it’s no longer any place for you. Or Joss.’

  Kate swallowed. It was going to be impossible to explain if James was going to be so nice. She said, almost without meaning to, ‘I’ve got so tired of helping people.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Kate, suddenly irritated. ‘Do you? It seems to me that clever people like you always make the mistake of thinking that stupid people like me are much more stupid than we are.’

  He said with some energy, ‘I’m not so patronizing.’

  Kate didn’t speak. She pulled her feet up on to the seat of the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees.

  ‘Is it the order we all impose on you?’ James asked. ‘Is it the demands? Is it—’ He stopped for a moment, and then he said, ‘Are you in love with someone else?’

  ‘No,’ Kate said.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Only a room. I’m in love with a room. I want to live in it, away from here.’

  ‘I see,’ James said. He leaned forward. ‘Could we talk about age?’

  Kate said, ‘I don’t want to be hurtful, I don’t want to damage anything. That’s why I must go away.’

  ‘Are you afraid you’ll have to look after me?’

  She dropped her eyes.

  ‘Do you love me?’ James said. ‘Do you love me still, at all?’

  She looked up. ‘I don’t know. I’m afraid of you.’

  ‘You’re afraid of yourself,’ he said. ‘You see in me what you will become and you’re afraid of that.’

  She cried, ‘But that doesn’t make it any less real for me! You can’t just talk away a feeling!’

  He put his hands briefly over his face. ‘Oh Katie,’ he said.

  She released her knees and gripped the arms of the chair. ‘I know I seem mad to you, and cruel, and selfish. But you know, don’t you, what it is to feel that you have to do something just – just to save yourself? Even if it hurts someone else?’ He stared at her. She went on, alm
ost crying. ‘I’m so bad at explaining, I can’t find the words, but I feel if I can’t go and live my own life I won’t have any meaning, that I’ll just break up, literally, into little bits and pieces—’

  ‘A younger life,’ James said.

  She took a long breath; then she nodded. She said, her voice faltering because the words she was about to say did not seem at all adequate for expressing what she felt, ‘James, I’m trying – I’m trying to do what’s right.’

  He said gently, ‘I suppose I was always expecting this, with part of my brain.’ He glanced up at her. ‘I’m sure you’ve thought of Leonard and me going on here, without you. But have you thought of you, without me?’

  She gave a little gasp. A fleeting dread seized her, but a second later it was swallowed up in the larger, now familiar dread of having to stay at Richmond Villa.

  ‘Nothing will be easy—’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘nothing ever is, in the end, nothing worth having, that is. What will you do for money?’

  ‘I’m going to work full-time for Christine.’

  ‘You’ll get exhausted—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let me give you a cheque—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please, Katie, let me help you, let me—’

  ‘No!’ she screamed, putting her hands over her ears. ‘No! I’ve got to be free!’

  He stood up. ‘Of course,’ he said.

  She said, ‘You’ll have Mrs Cheng to look after you, and Joss’ll come in to see you. We aren’t going far.’

  ‘Joss!’

  ‘Yes, of course. Joss will come with me—’

  His face twisted briefly. He put a hand out and lightly touched Kate’s shoulder.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘of course Joss will go with you.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Joss said.

  She was so angry with Kate she could hardly speak. She stood in front of her, in the kitchen, the light of her evening out quite extinguished from her eyes, and glared.

  ‘Jossie—’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Joss said. ‘Right? You can do whatever bloody stupid thing you want, but you’re not making me do it too. I’m not coming.’