A New Map of Love

by Annie Murray

  Maybe, he calculated, once we have finished our coffee, I should just ask her, outright. No messing about. They were both mature, experienced people. She might like the masterful approach. The only thing was, he just wasn’t very masterful. As she chattered on to him he rehearsed the words in his head . . . Now then – how about we . . . ? No – how about, Isn’t it time we went upstairs? Or perhaps the martinet approach – Come along now! Or perhaps, Oh darling, come with me, I must have you, now!

  Oh God.

  Sylvia put her mug down on the little table and leaned round to him. This was the moment – she was thinking the same! Any minute now they would be on the stairs, he taking her hand . . .

  ‘I was just thinking,’ she said. ‘D’you know what I’d really like – if it’s all right with you? I’d really like it if we went out for a drive.’

  A drive. In the heat of this Sunday afternoon, she wanted to be in the car, passing between hot fields and through green tunnels of branches, the air buffeting in through the windows, in search of a ‘nice little tea shop’.

  So he drove and drove. He drank tea and ate toasted teacakes in a little place in Henley, watching the pleasure boats and Salter’s Steamers cruising along the river’s brightness and it was, Sylvia said, ‘so nice’. And, he realized, it was nice. It was polite and fitting and she was happy and grateful and left him, when he dropped her off, with a smiling embrace and kisses. He was pleased that he had given pleasure and knew that she would soon want to see him again and that he should be patient and woo her as a gentleman should.

  But it did nothing to relieve the ache that spread through him of simple longing to hold and be held in a spirit of whole-hearted giving.

  5.

  Kevin was squatting against the back wall, near the vegetable garden, eating a sandwich and apparently reading a book. This behaviour would have been unusual at any time. For nine o’clock on a Monday morning it verged on the bizarre.

  ‘Morning, Kevin!’ George said, following Monty round from the back door.

  ‘Orghgumph,’ Kevin agreed, nodding madly, his cheeks tightly stuffed. He pushed himself hastily to his feet as Monty began to show excessive interest in his crotch.

  ‘What’re you up to?’ George enquired. ‘Don’t usually have breakfast out here, do you?’

  Kevin, still trying to access a chink of free space in his mouth, shook his head at length and eventually swallowed like a python.

  ‘No.’ He was hugging a big book with a faded cloth clover. ‘Just – you know – nice weather. And I’m reading my book. Look, Mr Baxter – I got it out of the lib’ry in Wallin’ford.’

  George read the faded gold letters: Albert Jacquemart, History of the Ceramic Art: A Descriptive and Philosophical Study of the Pottery of All Ages and All Nations.

  ‘Heavens, that’s a big book, Kevin. No wonder you had to sit down to read it. Not in French, is it?’

  ‘No – but it’s full of words!’ Kevin advised. He recited: ‘Vitreous, lacquer, arabesque!’ And beamed.

  George could not help but warm to this endeavour. ‘That’s jolly good, Kevin. Good for you. Now – I’m about to open up. Time to go to work.’

  He was nervous about how things might be with Vera, but she arrived in good spirits and they stood in the kitchen, catching up with Saturday’s events. Sales had included a large oak chest from the barn and a George the First gilt mirror. And no, he told her – the knocker, Charlie Bird, had not come back.

  Vera looked downcast. ‘I’m very sorry, Mr B. I might have lost us a deal there.’

  ‘Oh don’t worry.’ He liked the way she said ‘us’. ‘He’ll be back if he wanted anything. It’s not important.’

  There was a pause as she leaned on the handle of her basket and gave him a direct look. ‘So did you have a nice day yesterday?’

  He had only passingly mentioned that he would be having a visitor in the afternoon, but Vera seemed – somehow – well aware of who that visitor had been.

  George grew vague and drifty. ‘Oh—’ He started to move away. ‘Yes, very good – thank you.’ He wasn’t really sure why he didn’t want to talk to Vera about Sylvia. He just knew that he didn’t.

  ‘Mr B?’ Vera looked down into the basket as he turned back to her. There was another pause. Much as he didn’t want to, he realized he should ask after her and Alan.

  ‘Everything all right, Vera?’ It came out more breezily than he intended. He was jingling the change in his pocket like mad. ‘I mean – I don’t want my . . . anyone here to be unhappy. You know, good morale and all that!’ He laughed, rather too uproariously.

  Vera gave him a crooked smile. ‘I think I’ve managed to settle him down. We had a bit of a talk when we could, when the boys weren’t around. Came to a few agreements.’

  George smiled. ‘Oh, good!’

  ‘I was wondering,’ she went on. ‘You know you’ve got a little compartment in your fridge where you can keep things frozen – ice cream and that? You never have anything in there and if I make a job lot of pastry I can keep some in mine and another lot in yours for when I need it, see. Get a bit ahead of myself.’

  George agreed instantly to what seemed a remarkably simple way of keeping the peace. Vera went and pushed a rectangular package into the freezer compartment.

  ‘There – that’s a big help,’ she said, filling the kettle.

  Now things were more relaxed, and wanting to make her laugh, he told her about finding Kevin. ‘I really think the lad might have hidden depths.’

  ‘Huh, I don’t know about that.’ Vera was darting about the kitchen. ‘You know why he keeps hanging about round the back, don’t you? He’s waiting for her.’

  George frowned. ‘It’s not her day to come in.’

  ‘It is. She’s got to go to the dentist tomorrow instead.’

  As she spoke, a looming brown figure passed the kitchen window and pushed open the back door.

  ‘Ah – morning, Sharon!’ George greeted her.

  His teenage cleaner paused on the threshold with an expression suggesting that this salutation was the most fatuous thing she had ever heard.

  ‘Mornin’,’ she said, ambling over to the sink, past Vera, who gave George a wink behind Sharon’s back.

  ‘Kevin was looking for you,’ Vera said, with an air of mischief, putting her radio on the windowsill.

  Sharon slowly swivelled round, holding a pair of yellow rubber gloves. ‘Kevin?’

  George couldn’t help but admire the sheer concentration of scorn she managed to compress into one word.

  ‘Yes,’ Vera said. ‘I think he’s rather keen on you. D’you like him?’

  Sharon stared at her. ‘No.’

  It was as if she had spat on the ground.

  July

  Eleven

  1.

  The car was squeezed into a field gateway. A fragile arc of new moon hung over the fields and sprays of hawthorn scratched against the windscreen. The few cars that passed seemed very close, faintly rocking the car.

  Sylvia had suggested it, in that voice she used, thrumming with promise. They were on their way back from a meal at a very nice riverside pub. ‘Shall we pull over, George – just so’s we don’t get back too soon?’ They were only a couple of miles from her mother’s house.

  Once again they were wrapped round each other about as far as you can be wrapped when closely accompanied by a steering wheel, handbrake and gear-stick. Sylvia’s pungent scent filled the car. Her lips tasted of lipstick and, faintly, of tartar sauce. George settled his arms round the plump fullness of her. Slowly, he moved his hand up her back and then, with burglar-like stealth, round under her arm towards her buoyant left breast which was making itself known, insistently, close to his chest. Just as the surface of his palm made contact with the delicious, rounded shape, Sylvia seized his wrist, removed his hand downwards and drew back a fraction.

  ‘Now, now,’ she said, before reaching round to play a fingertip along the grooves of his ear, a sensation he
found maddening at a variety of levels: ticklish, arousing and perversely teasing. He shifted his head out of her reach.

  ‘Oh don’t you like that? I’m sorry.’ In the almost complete darkness she moved her face close to his, her eyes very wide. She seemed to be searching him with that sudden humility that would often come over her and remould his doubts – why am I pursuing things with this woman, why, exactly? – into a melting sense of protectiveness.

  ‘You’re so good to me, George. And it’s been such a lovely evening.’

  They had sat eating, looking over the water as the sun went down, lighting the ripples, a serene stillness in the air. It had been lovely. And he felt very fine, stepping out with this attractive woman, who was toute femme – an expression he had heard somewhere – and being able to treat her. Even though he was spending more money and eating in a style he was not used to, he kept thinking, ‘Damn it – why not live a bit?’ And his intentions were honourable. He wanted to do the right thing. It was just that, locked in her arms, he could only think, what harm would it do to get a bit of an advance on things?

  But this was always the story, had been now through the weeks he had been taking her out. The evenings ended like this, half-embraces in the car, or in some dark corner. But whenever he allowed himself to get involved and his hand strayed to one of the more alluring parts of her body, she slammed the brake on.

  ‘The thing is, George . . .’ Her voice was light, girlish, he realized when he heard it in the dark. ‘You’re such a lovely man. You’re the nicest, kindest man I’ve ever met. It’s just that a woman in my situation has to take care of herself.’

  She shifted round so that she was looking towards the windscreen.

  ‘It’s the way I was brought up, dear. I’m not one of those modern girls you see pictures of, you know, in Carnaby Street and places like that. I’m really quite old-fashioned.’

  ‘Well, yes.’ He sat back as well. He could just see the moon in the left-hand corner of the windscreen. ‘Yes of course.’ He forced himself to say, ‘That’s something I admire about you.’

  ‘Do you?’ She leaned round. ‘Oh I’m so glad to hear you say that! I just don’t think it’s right, however much you want to – and I do, George, don’t think for a moment that I don’t – to have . . . relations . . . outside marriage. You might find it silly of me.’ There was appeal in her voice now. ‘Or rather staid?’

  ‘Of course not.’ And he didn’t. She was right. His lips agreed with her, and his mind. Of course, no decent girl . . . While his body and spirits, primed with longing, howled inside him.

  ‘I knew you thought like me. You’re such a decent sort of man!’ she said, delighted. ‘Only I was afraid . . .’ She reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Oh George, you are a darling, you really are!’

  His hand reached for the ignition. ‘Well – I don’t know about that . . . I do try – even though . . .’ He added the next words in the small, devious hope that they might make her change her mind. Morals were a fine thing, but all the same . . . ‘Even though I do long for you, Sylvia, you know that. It’s been a long time since . . . you know, with Win being so ill and everything.’

  ‘I know, dear. That’s lovely.’ Her right hand rested warm over his left for a moment. ‘That’s so nice of you to say. And I do feel so safe with you.’

  After he had dropped her off, he drew up just along the street and reached into the glove compartment for his emergency hip flask. He tipped a generous helping into his mouth and swallowed it in three goes, the friendly, pungent fumes burning out through his nostrils.

  Safe? That was a compliment, he supposed. But was that all he ever was – safe? Once again he was filled with a sensation that squeezed out from his chest and along his arms, a painful longing for he hardly knew what. He let out a heavy sigh, from the depths of him.

  ‘Oh God,’ he whispered. For a moment he felt like weeping.

  He took another swig from the flask and replaced the top and the silver cup. Slowly, he drove home.

  2.

  Vera held out the telephone receiver to George, who was seated at his desk, mouthing, ‘Lady Byngh!’ and rolling her eyes. She handed it to him and retreated hastily from the office.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Baxter?’ She sounded better. Physically anyway. ‘Have you managed to track down my things?’

  ‘Well, no, I—’

  ‘I thought not. Well I’m just telephoning to tell you that the police have shown a great deal more initiative than you have, my man!’

  ‘Yes, well that is their—’

  ‘They’ve made a very good start. I want you to go and . . .’

  The rest of what might have been a command became abruptly muffled and was overwhelmed by a series of crashes that seemed to involve items of crockery, something large and metallic and, more worryingly, a muted thud followed by a groan.

  ‘Oh good heavens, Percy!’ An exclamation more of impatience than concern. ‘Whatever are you doing? Look, Baxter . . .’ Her voice came on full volume again. ‘Percy’s taken a tumble. I shall have to go. But they’ve found my bureau, so . . .’ She must have put the receiver back mid-sentence. Perhaps she had forgotten he couldn’t hear. He was left with the burring of the line.

  ‘That’s a bit of bad luck,’ he said to Vera in the kitchen. ‘That blasted bureau bookcase of hers has turned up again.’

  ‘What – the mated one?’ She used this term with a knowing casualness that impressed him.

  ‘Yes.’ He wandered, frowning, to the window. Outside he saw Sharon’s ominous form hanging tea towels on the line. ‘I wish we’d told her now. We didn’t want to disappoint her, but – good Lord, what’s going on?’

  Something had come flying out through the window of the barn, bounced on the grass and hit Sharon in the back of her right thigh. She paused, holding up a damp white rectangle of cloth and turned, as Sharon did everything, slowly. It was like watching a tank position its sights. Her scowling features fixed their attention on the barn window.

  ‘Someone’s just chucked a ball at her,’ George said. ‘An old tennis ball!’

  ‘Oh.’ Vera was on her way out of the kitchen. There was laughter in her voice. ‘That’ll be Kevin. He can’t leave her alone.’ Her steps receded along the hall, but before he found the presence of mind to move, they returned.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, head round the door, ‘I’ve found a . . . a thing in the bathroom. Hanging up. I wasn’t sure if someone had left it by mistake?’ There seemed to be no guile in her question. Nor had he any sensible idea what she was talking about.

  ‘A silky thing – sort of robe.’

  Now she said it, he did recall something on the back of the door, a creamy thing with large pink flowers of some sort. And of course he guessed who had somehow left it there. He felt himself colour. It would only be Sylvia. Was this a promise, a change of heart? Did she want him to persuade her into bed? But he was now conscious that it looked to Vera as though he already had.

  ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ he stammered, knowing how unconvincing he sounded. ‘I haven’t seen anything.’

  Vera looked back at him for a moment with a serious face. ‘Sorry, Mr B,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I just thought I’d better ask, that’s all.’

  ‘Quite all right, Vera,’ he said, too breezily, turning away. He patted his jacket pockets to give the impression that he was thinking about manly, business-like affairs. ‘Must go and talk to Clarence . . .’

  Vera disappeared again. He stood in the kitchen. What was Sylvia playing at?

  3.

  ‘Kevin . . .’ George stepped into the workshop the next morning. ‘I’ve a few things to do over Reading way. I’d like you to come with me.’

  The men halted work with various things held in their hands: Clarence an oily rag, Kevin a wedge of sandpaper and Alan, who to George’s discomfort, was watching him with an unreadable expression, a chisel. He wondered exactly what had happened bet
ween Alan and Vera. Did Alan resent him? He felt a twinge of fellow feeling, a manly, old soldiers together, ‘keep the little woman in line’ reflex, which clashed immediately with the recollection of Vera’s hardworking competence. Why, when you came down to it, should Alan dictate what she should do or not do at work? What skin was it off his nose? Should he – oh God forbid, bowel-chilling thought – have a word with Alan?

  Kevin brightened instantly. ‘Are we going to an auction, Mr Baxter?’

  ‘No, not today. Maybe soon.’ He always felt as if he was appeasing a child with Kevin. ‘Just a few things to do. We’ll take the van.’

  ‘But it’s not Monday.’ Kevin’s brow puckered.

  ‘No, it’s not Monday,’ George agreed. ‘But for one thing’ – he looked at Clarence – ‘I’ve been instructed to go and get that bureau of Lady Byngh’s back.’

  Clarence mumbled something insulting that included the word ‘mongrel’. He turned away, tutting. ‘I knew that thing’d come back to haunt us.’

  ‘I’ll bring my sandwiches,’ Kevin enthused. George found himself feeling grateful for the boy.

  It was a pleasant drive on a warm, hazy morning, the scents of ripening wheat and barley through the windows accompanied by the tang of Branston Pickle from Kevin’s stolid sandwich-munching. They passed between open fields, into the wooded slopes of the Chilterns.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t it, Mr Baxter?’ Kevin said with something close to poetic fervour, as they rushed down another slope in the shade of over-arching beeches.

  George agreed, eyeing Kevin for a moment. Part of his motivation for getting Kevin to come with him was to distance him from his attentions towards the lugubrious Sharon. But he couldn’t quite fathom Kevin, this sturdy, rather spud-like boy beside him with his brown, soulful eyes and sudden enthusiasms. He seemed like a flickering electrical circuit, sometimes startlingly bright, while at other times giving you cause to wonder whether he was switched on at all. He mused on whether he should say anything about Sharon. Another of those fatherly moments, perhaps? But the thought of Sylvia came to him. He wouldn’t have welcomed the idea of being cross-questioned on that subject, so why should he inflict such a thing on Kevin? Instead, he said, ‘Still reading that book of yours on ceramics, are you?’