Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection

by Rosie Thomas

  Harriet tried to keep her mother in sight as she drove, but she lost her almost immediately in the tangle of traffic that blocked the heart of her old home town.

  In her own home, Harriet turned the stiff plastic sheets of the cuttings file. She knew the next batch as if she had written them herself – it had been harder work, earning these ephemeral paragraphs, than almost anything else she had ever done. She read the headlines. Life and death game. Into the labyrinth. It’s a Gamble. Conundrum by any other name. These were the write-ups she had wanted, focussing on the game itself, her own gamble in deciding to publish it, the decision to change its name. She had done everything she could think of to generate publicity, recreating her Oxford Street bus rides with a photographer, turning a city chess garden into ‘Meizu Maze’ for a day, challenging mathematicians and sports personalities and soap actors to find a ‘Meizu Master’.

  She would do anything to get Meizu talked about, or herself talked about, so long as it meant at the same time that Simon was forgotten. In the end, her determination to make a story in itself became a story, and Meizu Girl was born. And to become Meizu Girl Harriet developed a secondary self, an extrovert, bright-smiling and quick-talking Harriet who wasn’t quite real, was too thick-skinned and determined to be real, but who at the same time provided an outlet for many of the energies that had warred uncomfortably in the primary Harriet.

  The second Harriet became the best friend of gossip reporters and feature writers. The coverage developed from little snippets puffing Meizu to longer profiles of Harriet as a new-wave businesswoman, as a hard-edged success story, as a career girl who put her work before her private life.

  For the sake of Peacocks, Harriet talked about the failure of her marriage to a sympathetic girl from one of the women’s magazines. The story had appeared under the heading, ‘Why my business meant more than my marriage’. Leo had complained, coldly, that she made him sound like a bad bottom line, to be obliterated at all costs.

  ‘You know I didn’t mean that,’ the real Harriet had answered.

  There had been other pieces, on the theme that there was no one special in Harriet’s life now because Peacocks came first. ‘I like to be taken out to dinner, yes, I love to go to the opera with someone special,’ she was quoted as saying, ‘but being in love takes time, and I don’t have much of that to spare.’

  ‘Is that true?’ Robin asked her one night, when they lay in the dark. ‘I was being discreet,’ Harriet answered, which they both knew was no answer to the question.

  Harriet’s theory had been that all publicity was good publicity, all publicity that did not touch upon Simon. And she believed, as she turned the plastic-covered sheets, that she had been right. Meizu and Peacocks and Harriet herself had become the focus of press attention, and interest in Simon had correspondingly dwindled away. There was no mileage in pictures of an empty house, and the Real Officer story in any case led nowhere once it had been told, whereas Harriet was available, visible and endlessly inventive.

  Simon had spent a few weeks in hospital and had returned home to find his privacy restored. Harriet and Kath had visited him, separately, more than once. He was quiet, newly passive, but seemingly well again. He appeared able to look after himself as he always had done. He showed no interest in the Peacocks money that was accumulating for him when Harriet tried to persuade him to make use of it.

  And in the past twelve months Peacocks had experienced a growth rate of almost four hundred per cent. The company had acquired new offices, a distribution manager, a customer services manager, and would soon be needing a sales manager to take on some of Harriet’s workload.

  Martin and Robin Landwith were pleased with the progress of their investment.

  Meditatively Harriet closed the blue folder, and slipped it with the others into her briefcase.

  When the telephone rang on the table beside Harriet she answered and found that it was Robin, as if he had known that she was thinking of him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  Harriet smiled. ‘Looking at the feasibility of Travel Meizu in a blister pack, thinking about point-of-sale for an extra fast sell-through. I’ve been doing more or less that since I came in, and now I’m going to stop.’ That was close enough to the truth. She wouldn’t tell him that she had submitted herself to trial by press-cutting, and found herself guilty.

  ‘And what now?’

  ‘Bed, I think.’

  There was a small silence, then Robin said, ‘Shall I drive over and join you?’

  It was an unusual request. By an unspoken agreement that had seemed to suit them both, Robin and Harriet spent one or two weekday evenings together, at the theatre or the opera or simply over dinner. Sometimes they went to parties or nightclubs, usually at the invitation of one of Robin’s friends or business associates, but Harriet preferred the earlier nights because she needed to be able to think clearly in the mornings. At the weekends they spent all or a part of their time together, depending on their separate commitments. Robin was often abroad, and lately Harriet had been travelling too.

  After their evenings out they returned either to Robin’s house or to Harriet’s new flat. It still surprised Harriet how much she enjoyed going to bed with Robin Landwith. Sometimes when she thought unguardedly about it, of how he had last touched her and what he had said, it made her inner muscles contract and a small hiccup of breath catch in her throat.

  It happened now, as she thought, twenty minutes from Battersea to here …

  But yet, to succumb to that need would be to put herself at risk of other needs, her own and Robin’s. They had made clear definitions, she thought, and they worked well. It was responsibility and dependency that she had been afraid of in the beginning, and if the definitions between them were changed, what might happen then?

  So it was against her immediate inclination that she answered, ‘Well, no. Perhaps not tonight, Robin. I’ve got a serious day tomorrow.’ And at once she thought, what are you afraid of? Robin isn’t dependent, nor do I need to feel responsible for him. It’s my own weakness, the fear that I might give away and admit to needing him …

  ‘That’s a pity,’ Robin said. His voice sounded husky, almost blurred. Harriet wondered for a moment if he might be drunk, before realising that what she could hear was tenderness. It reminded her of the beginning.

  ‘Shall we have lunch tomorrow?’ he asked now.

  Harriet bit the corner of her mouth. ‘I’d like to, but I can’t. I’m having lunch with Jane and I’ve put her off once already.’

  At the end of the line she heard Robin laugh. It was a low, warm laugh that made her remember again what it was like to have him beside her, to feel his hand move over the slope of her thigh to the folds between her legs. Harriet stood up abruptly, carrying the telephone with her. She walked over to the gilt-framed mirror above the mantelpiece and stared with hostility at her own reflection.

  ‘In that case,’ Robin said, ‘I shall have to do this by telephone. It isn’t how I imagined it, but I shall have to make do. You must take the appropriate posture as adopted, even though I might be standing on my head for all you know.’

  ‘Robin, what are you talking about? Are you a bit drunk?’

  ‘No, darling. Never more sober. Harriet, will you marry me?’

  She saw the shock leap in the eyes of her reflection. She saw something else too, a light and warmth in her face that made her look pretty, rubbing away the preoccupied lines at the corners of her mouth. Her fingers felt damp. Harriet found that she was exactly half-way between laughing and crying.

  ‘I’m married already,’ she whispered.

  ‘That is not a serious obstacle, as you must know.’

  Harriet wished that she had said yes, drive over here tonight, come now. It would have been easier to say this to him directly, rather than to this touching disembodied voice.

  ‘No, I won’t. Robin, are you there?’ She had said it too abruptly, she couldn’t call back the words. ‘I can
’t, rather. I feel as if Peacocks has taken everything, for now. I haven’t got enough, what is it, essence left over to marry with. I’m very happy being with you, Robin. I love what we do, everything we do together. I can’t get married again. Are you still there?’

  ‘I’m still here. I think I’ll get up off my knees.’

  ‘Were you really kneeling down?’

  ‘You’ll never know, now, will you?’

  ‘Damn.’ Harriet was crying, now. She saw a pair of oily tears swell at the corners of her eyes and roll, gathering momentum down the sides of her nose.

  ‘I love you, Harriet.’

  She listened to the silence, hearing him breathe, twenty minutes away from her by white Porsche. She wiped the tears away with her free hand, wanting to sniff, wanting to cry some more.

  ‘Say it,’ he commanded.

  ‘I love you too.’ It was half of a truth, enough of a truth to suffice, like many of the truths she dealt in nowadays.

  Softly Robin said, ‘That’s good. Enjoy your lunch. See you on Friday,’ and he rang off.

  Harriet dropped the telephone back into place, walked slowly down the stairs to her big, luxurious bathroom, stripped off her clothes and stood in the hot shower where it didn’t matter that the tears were running down her face. She cried without fully understanding why she needed to cry, and when it was over she dried herself and put cream on her swollen cheeks. She went to bed, telling herself to be happy, and eventually fell asleep.

  Jane had arrived first. She was sitting at a corner table in the restaurant with the Guardian’s education section folded in front of her. She looked up as Harriet came between the tables towards her.

  ‘I’m always late,’ Harriet said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You look good, Harriet.’ She did, too, Jane thought. It was nothing definable, except that Harriet seemed to have acquired presence. Two or three people at the nearest tables turned to glance at her as if they half-recognised her. Meizu Girl, Jane remembered. The nonsense of the title made her smile with her lips together. Harriet saw her expression and tugged apologetically at the peplum of her scarlet jacket, thinking Jane must be meaning her clothes. Jane was wearing one of her standard outfits, a shade less war-zone than usual because it was the school holidays. The two of them made an odd contrast.

  Harriet explained, ‘I’ve got a day of meetings. This is my bid to look significant.’

  ‘It’s very successful.’

  Harriet sat down quickly. ‘What shall we eat?’

  The restaurant was busy, noisy with office Christmas lunch-parties that were already growing boisterous. Harriet started to worry about her three o’clock meeting.

  ‘I’m just going to have mozzarella salad,’ she said, not looking at the menu.

  ‘I’m hungry. I’m going to have linguine.’

  When they had ordered they leaned back, looking at each other. It was more than two weeks since they had last met; Harriet found herself trying to remember what news they had exchanged then. Jane had been producing the school’s Christmas show, Harriet had listened to her descriptions of backstage dramas, and had talked in her turn about Christmas sales peaks and the relaunch of the rainbow version. ‘Remember the night before the Toy Fair?’ Jane said, and they both laughed at the memory.

  Even so, when they kissed goodbye at the end of the evening Harriet came away with the feeling that they hadn’t talked about anything much. Covertly, now, she looked at her watch. There was no time for anything in what was left of this lunch hour.

  ‘It’s been a long time.’ Jane spoke Harriet’s thoughts. ‘What’s been happening?’

  Last night the venture capitalist you all disapprove of asked me to marry him? Harriet knew she wouldn’t mention it, and the realisation made her aware that a space had opened between Jane and herself. Nor had Jane talked much, lately, about her own love affairs, or lack of them. Harriet told herself that next time they met, the very next time, whenever it was, she would make sure they had a proper talk.

  Just work. We’re looking at a travel Meizu, for next year. And looking at the possibility of publishing some new games. Two ideas look quite promising, I’m meeting the designer this afternoon.’

  Jane nodded.

  ‘What about you?’

  Jane considered for a moment, as if about to say something, but their plates of food arrived between them, and once the waiter had left them alone again she only said, ‘Just work, like you. Are we getting old and dull? I had dinner at Jenny and Charlie’s.’ She told Harriet who the other guests had been; they were old friends from the Crete days. Harriet wondered why she had not been invited too, and then remembered that in any case she had been in Germany that night.

  ‘How are they?’

  ‘Good. Harry’s walking.’

  ‘Already? How long is it since that day we went to see him?’

  Jenny’s second son was more than a year old. Harriet and Jane had gone to the hospital together, to a different ward that was still almost identical to the one they had looked fearfully into before finding Jenny shut away on her own. This time Jenny had been ensconced in the centre of the row of beds, with the hospital crib beside her and Harry asleep in it. Exhaustion and relief had stripped her face bare, so that every flicker of feeling showed in it.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she had whispered to them. ‘I still think, I’m still afraid that he’ll die. But he’s perfect, isn’t he? Look at him, he’s perfect. He weighs eight and a half pounds.’

  Jane had leaned over the crib to touch the warm, peachskinned, naked head.

  Harriet smiled at the memory. Jane’s head was bent over her plate, although she wasn’t eating.

  ‘How is Jenny?’ Harriet asked. Jenny was pregnant for the third time. Charlie could even joke about her fecundity now.

  ‘She’s OK. Like a ripe fruit.’

  Harriet’s anxiety for the time and the afternoon ahead of her conflicted with concern for Jane. Guiltily aware of her hope that whatever it was wouldn’t take too long.

  Harriet asked as gently as she could, ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh. Not much, really. School gets me down. It’s seemed more of a pointless struggle against apathy and underfunding than ever, just lately.’

  Harriet sighed. ‘Get a job in a better school.’

  Jane tapped the newspaper beside her. ‘I’m looking. But it’s all complicated by wanting a baby, isn’t it?’

  Harriet studied Jane’s face. It had darkened, and there were sucked-in hollows at the corners of her mouth.

  ‘Is it? Do you want a baby now?’

  ‘The clock’s ticking.’

  ‘You’re only thirty-two.’

  Jane leaned forward. ‘Harriet, I’m desperate for a baby. All the powers of reasoning ask why, and I can’t answer. I just am. I pick Jenny’s baby up, I look in every pram, and I feel it like a pain. Don’t you?’

  Wonderingly, Harriet shook her head. ‘No. Never like that. Not with Leo, and not since. But if you do, why don’t you just go ahead and have one?’

  ‘On my own? Just get inseminated by whoever’s to hand, you mean? I’d rather have a baby with a father to its name.’ She paused, twisting the strands of pasta on her plate, and then put her fork down. ‘There was somebody.’

  ‘You never told me.’

  ‘No. Well, it never came to anything much.’

  In the past, Harriet would have extracted the story and then commiserated or consoled. Now she just stared miserably, aware of constraints that had never existed before.

  Jane ignored the silence. ‘If I did decide to do it by myself, there are the practical considerations, aren’t there? I’d have to go on working, so I’d have to find someone to look after it. I’d have to move house, I wouldn’t want to bring up a child in my neighbourhood.’

  Harriet thought of the streets, either threateningly teeming with life, or ominously deserted. She felt a twinge of irritation, like the beginning of toothache, and resiste
d the need to look at her watch. ‘So look for another house. There are plenty of houses.’

  Jane’s head jerked up. Her throat and cheeks began to flush dark red. ‘Have you seen what’s happened to property prices?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve just bought somewhere, remember? It isn’t like you to be so defeated.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m just tired of the struggle. Whereas you’re such a go-getter, aren’t you?’ Jane was angry. ‘It’s all right for you, Harriet.’

  Harriet was silenced by her bitterness. She could have demanded, Why is it all right for me? What’s the difference between you and me? She supposed that Jane meant money. Yet the truth was that she had very little money because she took almost nothing out of the business. Her car and today’s clothes were necessary expenses, and her beautiful flat had only been bought on Jeremy Crichton’s recommendation. Yet because Peacocks was successful, she could imagine how Jane thought she was rich and therefore different.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at length, because she felt she had to. The colour in Jane’s face began to fade. They looked at each other, and found the grace to laugh. Jane reached out and put her hand over Harriet’s.

  ‘I think I’m going a little bit mad. It must be the thwarted maternal hormones.’

  ‘What will you really do?’

  Jane shrugged, flicking her plait of hair back over her shoulder. ‘Probably go on just as I am. Let’s have some coffee, shall we?’

  They tried to talk about other things while they drank it.

  ‘Are you coming to my party?’

  By tradition, Jane gave a lunch party on the day after Boxing Day.

  ‘Of course I am.’

  Harriet had not decided yet whether or not she would ask Robin to come with her.

  It was half-past two. The office parties were settling in for the afternoon; Harriet couldn’t pretend any longer that she was not in a hurry. She called for the bill and paid it, insisting rather too forcefully, and they hustled out on to the cold pavement. They exchanged kisses again and Jane went on her way.