The Little House

by Philippa Gregory

  At two minutes to eleven the disc jockey’s voice cut into her rehearsal. ‘News coming up! Are you there and conscious, Ruth?’

  ‘Ready to go,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Thank the Lord for a happy voice from the newsroom. What’s up with you guys today?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Ruth said frostily, instantly loyal to her colleagues.

  ‘We hear of massive cutbacks, and journalists out on the streets,’ the DJ said cheerfully.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘So who’s got the push?’

  ‘I’m busy now,’ she said tightly. ‘I’ll pop down and spread gloom and anxiety in a minute. Right now I’m trying to read a news bulletin.’

  He switched off his talkback button. Ruth had a reputation at the radio station for a quick mind and a frank turn of phrase. Her headphones were filled with the sound of the record – the Carpenters. ‘We’ve only just begun …’ Ruth felt her temper subside and she smiled. She liked romantic music.

  Then the disc jockey said with his carefully learned mid-Atlantic accent: ‘Eleven o’clock, time for Radio Westerly news with Ruth Cleary!’

  He announced her name as if there should have been a drumroll underneath it. Ruth grinned and then straightened her face and assumed her solemn news-reading voice. She read first the national news, managing the Ural Mountains without a hitch, and then the local news. At the end of the bulletin she read the local weather report and handed back to the DJ. She gathered the papers of the bulletin and sat for one short moment in the quiet. If David had been sacked then it was unlikely that they would be keeping her on. They had joined at the same time from the same college course, but David was probably the better journalist. Ruth straightened her back, opened the swing door, and emerged into the noise of the newsroom. She passed the script of the bulletin to the copy girl for filing and tapped on the news editor’s door.

  James Peart looked so guilty she knew at once that he would make her redundant. He did.

  ‘This is a horrible job,’ James said miserably. ‘David and you, and one other. It’s a foul thing to have to do. But I have suggested to David that he look at freelancing and I was going to suggest to you that you look at putting together some light documentary programmes. We might have a slot for some local pieces: family interest, animals, children, local history, that sort of thing in the afternoon show. Nothing too ambitious, bread-and-butter stuff. But it’s the sort of thing you do rather well, Ruth. If you can’t find full-time work, you could do that for us. We’d lend you the recording equipment, and you could come in and use the studio. And you’d get paid a fee and expenses, of course.’ He broke off. ‘I know it’s not much but it would keep your hand in while you’re looking round.’

  ‘Bread-and-butter?’ Ruth asked. ‘Sounds more like slop.’

  James grimaced. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger, Ruth,’ he said.

  ‘Who shall I shoot then?’ she said. ‘Who’s responsible for putting me, and David, and someone else out of a job?’

  He shrugged. ‘Market forces?’ he offered.

  ‘This is rubbish,’ she said firmly. ‘Why didn’t you tell them that you couldn’t run the newsroom understaffed?’

  ‘Because my job’s on the line too,’ he said frankly. ‘I did tell them that we should keep the staff, but if I make too many waves then I’m out as well. I can’t lose my job for a principle, Ruth.’

  ‘So I lose mine for the lack of one?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘We should have had a union,’ she said stubbornly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Or better contracts, or better management, or more profits. But those days are gone, Ruth. I’m sorry.’

  She was silent.

  ‘Look, there’s nothing I can do but offer you freelance work,’ he said. ‘I’ll do my best to take everything you do. You’re a good journalist, Ruth, you’ll make it. If not here, then London. And I’ll give you good references. The best.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘Thanks,’ she said shortly.

  ‘Maybe Patrick knows of something in television,’ James suggested. ‘He might be able to slot you in somewhere. That’s where the money is, not radio.’

  ‘He might,’ Ruth said.

  James got up and held out his hand. ‘You’ll work till the end of the week, and then take a month’s salary,’ he said. ‘I do wish you luck, Ruth. I really wish this hadn’t happened. If things look up at all then you’ll be the first person I’d want to see back on the staff.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘If there’s anything at all I can do to help …’ he said showing her towards the door.

  Ruth thought of her inability to pay the bills on time and run the flat as it should be run, of Patrick’s legitimate desire for a meal when he came home after working all day, of Patrick’s pay rise and the ascendancy of his career. Maybe a period of freelance work would be good for them both.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. It looks like it’s all falling into place.’

  She rang to leave a message for Patrick that she would meet him at the restaurant, and she ran through the rain to the pub. Although it was barely opening time, David was sitting up at the bar and was smiling and lightly drunk.

  ‘Flying start,’ he said genially. ‘I took the sensible course of a vodka tea.’

  ‘Gin and tonic,’ Ruth said, hitching herself up onto the barstool. ‘Double.’

  ‘You got the push too?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘What did he suggest? Freelancing for Panorama? Career opportunities on News at Ten? Or you could go back to the States and run CNN?’

  ‘It’s odd,’ Ruth said with mock thoughtfulness. ‘He didn’t mention any of them. Probably thought they were beneath me.’

  David made a face. ‘Poor bastard’s doing his best,’ he said. ‘He promised me if I went freelance they’d use my pieces, and I could come into studio to edit for free.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘He offered me the same. Suggested I do local bread-and-butter stuff for the afternoon programme.’

  ‘It’s a great business, the media!’ David said with sudden assumed cheeriness. ‘You’re never out of work. You’re either resting or freelancing. But you’re never unemployed.’

  ‘Or taking time out to start a family,’ Ruth said. She screwed her face up at him in an awful simper. ‘I think the first few years are so precious! And I can always come back into it when the baby starts school.’

  ‘Boarding school,’ David supplemented. ‘Stay home with him until he sets off for boarding school. Just take eleven years off. What’s that, after all? It’ll pass in a flash.’

  ‘No child of mine is boarding! I think a mother should stay home until the children are grown,’ Ruth said earnestly. ‘University age at least.’

  ‘First job,’ David corrected her. ‘Give them a stable start. You can come back to work twenty-one years from now.’

  ‘Oh, but the grandchildren will need me!’ Ruth exclaimed.

  ‘Ah, yes, the magic years. So you could come back to work when you’re … perhaps … sixty?’

  Ruth looked thoughtful. ‘I’d like to do a couple more months before I retire,’ she said. ‘I really am a career girl, you know.’

  They broke off and smiled at each other. ‘You’re a mate,’ David said. ‘And you’re a good journalist too. They’re mad getting rid of you. You’re worth two or three of some of them.’

  ‘Last in, first out,’ Ruth said. ‘You’re better than them too.’

  He shrugged. ‘So what will you do?’

  Ruth hesitated. ‘The forces are massing a bit,’ she said hesitantly. She was not sure how much to tell David. Her powerful loyalty to Patrick usually kept her silent. ‘Patrick’s parents have a cottage near them that has come up for sale. Patrick’s always wanted it. He’s getting promoted, which is more money and better hours. And we have been married four, nearly five years. There is a kind of inevitability about what happens next.’

  David
had never learned tact. ‘What d’you mean: what happens next? D’you mean a baby?’

  Ruth hesitated. ‘Eventually, yes, of course,’ she said. ‘But not right now. I wanted to work up a bit, you know. I did want to work for the BBC. I even thought about television.’

  ‘You always said you were going to travel,’ he reminded her. ‘Research your roots. Go back to America and find your missing millionaire relations.’

  ‘If I’m freelance that’ll be easier.’

  ‘Not with a baby,’ David reminded her.

  Ruth was silent.

  ‘I suppose there is such a thing as contraception,’ David said lightly. ‘A woman’s right to choose and all that. We are in the nineties. Or did I miss something?’

  ‘Swing back to family values,’ Ruth said briskly. ‘Women in the home and crime off the streets.’

  He chuckled and was about to cap the joke but stopped himself. ‘No, hang on a minute,’ he said. ‘I don’t get this. I never thought you were the maternal type, Ruth. You don’t really want a baby, do you?’

  Ruth was about to agree with him, but again her loyalty to Patrick silenced her. She nodded to the barman to give them another round of drinks and busied herself with paying him. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Patrick’s got this very established conventional sort of family, and he’s a very conventional sort of man …’ She looked to see if David was nodding in agreement. He was not.

  ‘They’re very influential,’ she said weakly. ‘It’s very difficult to argue with them. And of course they want us to move house, and of course, sooner or later, they’ll expect a baby.’

  ‘Come on,’ David said irritably. ‘It’ll be you that expects it, and you that gives birth. If you don’t want to have a baby, you must just say no.’

  Ruth was silent. David realized he had been too abrupt. ‘Can’t you just say no?’

  She turned to look at him. ‘Oh, David,’ she said. ‘You know me as well as anybody. I never had any family life worth a damn. When I met Patrick and he took me home, I suddenly saw somewhere I could belong. And they took me in, and now they’re my family. I don’t want to spoil it. We see them practically every Sunday …’

  ‘D’you know what I do on Sunday mornings?’ David interrupted. ‘I don’t get up till eleven. I take the papers back to bed with me and read all the trivial bits – the travel sections and the style sections and the magazines. When the pubs open I walk across the park to The Fountain and I have a drink with some people there. Then I take a curry back home, and I read all the papers, and watch the telly. Then if I feel energetic I go for a jog. And if I feel lazy I do nothing. And in the evening I go round to see someone I like, or people come round and see me. I can’t imagine having to be polite all day to someone’s mum and dad.’

  ‘They’re my mum and dad,’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘No, they’re not.’

  He saw, as she turned away from him, that he had gone too far. ‘Sorry,’ he said. He shifted his barstool closer and put his hand on her knee. ‘Tell you what, come back to my flat with me,’ he said. ‘I’ll read last Sunday’s papers to you.’

  Ruth gave him a wan smile, picked up his hand, and dropped it lightly in his lap. ‘Married woman,’ she said. ‘As you well know.’

  ‘Wasted on matrimony,’ he said. ‘That sexy smile of yours. I should have taken my chance with you when I had it, when you were young and stupid, before you found Prince Charming and got stuck in the castle.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I’m very happy.’

  David bit back the response. ‘Well, we both are!’ he said, lapsing into irony again. ‘What with our vivid emotional lives and our glittering careers! Speaking of which – what about our glittering careers? What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll look round,’ she said. ‘And I’ll do some local pieces for James. I can keep my hand in and they won’t look bad on a CV. What about you?’

  ‘I need a job,’ David said. ‘I can freelance for a week or so, but when the money runs out I need a pay cheque. I’ll be sweeping the streets, I reckon.’

  Ruth giggled suddenly, her face brightening. ‘Walking them more like,’ she said. ‘A tart like you. You could pop down to the docks.’

  David smiled back at her. ‘I try to keep my self-respect,’ he said primly. ‘But if you know any rich old women I could be tempted. What about your mother-in-law? Would she fancy a fling with a young gigolo? Is she the toyboy type?’

  Ruth snorted into her drink. ‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘You could pop out on Sunday afternoons and rendezvous in that bloody cottage!’

  Two

  RUTH WAS LATE at the restaurant, and her high spirits evaporated when she saw Patrick’s sulky face over the large menu.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ she said as she slipped onto the bench seat opposite him. ‘I went out for a drink with David and I didn’t watch the time.’

  Patrick’s bright blue eyes widened in surprise. ‘Well, thanks very much,’ he said. ‘I hurried here to be with you and then I sit here on my own while you go boozing with some guy from work.’

  ‘He’s just been made redundant,’ Ruth said. ‘And I was too.’

  Patrick, who had been about to continue his complaint, was abruptly silenced. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve been made redundant,’ Ruth said. ‘Me and David and someone else. We’re all out at the end of the week with a month’s pay in hand. They offered us freelance work.’

  Patrick’s face was radiant. ‘Well, what a coincidence!’ he said. ‘Aren’t things just working out for us?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Ruth said rather tartly, fired by David and by two double gins. ‘I wanted to keep my job; and if I left it I wanted to go somewhere better. I didn’t want to get the sack and have a baby as second best.’

  Patrick quickly summoned the waiter. ‘D’you want spaghetti, darling? And salad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Patrick ordered and poured Ruth a glass of wine. ‘You’re upset,’ he said soothingly. ‘Poor darling. How disappointing. Don’t feel too bad about it. We’ll look round. We’ll find you another job. There must be people who would snap you up. You’re so bright and a damn fine journalist.’

  Ruth’s mouth quivered. ‘I liked it there!’ she said miserably. ‘And I was doing some really good stories. I even scooped your lot a couple of times.’

  ‘You’re an excellent journalist,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’m so confident you’ll find work at once somewhere else … if you want it.’

  As Ruth lifted her head to protest, he held up his hand. ‘Not another word!’ he said. ‘You’ve had a shock. We won’t talk plans tonight. Not a word about jobs or flats or cottages. Not a word! Let me tell you about the interview I did with Clark today – you’ll die.’

  Patrick told Ruth a story and she laughed politely. Their food came and Patrick continued to lay himself out to please her. He was witty and he could be charming. Ruth, enjoying the mixture of red wine and gin, found herself laughing at his stories and capping them with stories of her own. It was midnight before they left the restaurant, and Patrick put his arm around her as they walked home together.

  ‘I love you,’ he said softly in her ear as they opened the front door and went into the warm hall.

  They went upstairs together and Ruth turned to embrace him in the bedroom. Patrick held her close and kissed her with warm, seductive kisses. It was so unusual for them to make love during the week that Ruth was slow to respond. She stayed in his arms, content to be kissed, her eyes closed.

  ‘Into bed with you, Mrs Cleary,’ Patrick said and gave her a little push towards the bed. Ruth lay back and stretched luxuriously. Patrick dropped his head and nudged sexily at her breasts, his hands pushing up her skirt until he found the waistband of her tights.

  ‘Patrick!’ Ruth said. She half sat up. ‘Perhaps I had better go to the bathroom!’ she said. She meant that she needed to put in her diaphragm, their only contraception.

  �
�I want you,’ he said urgently. ‘I want you right now.’

  Ruth gasped with surprised delight at his urgency. He was stripping down her tights and panties, and kicking off his own shoes. Ruth giggled drunkenly, delightedly.

  ‘I have to go,’ she protested.

  Patrick shucked off his trousers and pants in one swift movement and swarmed up over her, kissing her neck and her ears. His hand reached behind her back and undid her bra, slid his hand under the lace and caressed her breast. Ruth felt her desire rising, felt herself careless, sexy, urgent.

  ‘Come on, Ruth,’ he whispered. ‘Like when we were first lovers. Let’s take a chance. Let’s take a sexy chance, Ruth. I want to be right inside you with nothing between us. Come on, darling, I want to.’

  His fingers stroked insistently between her legs. Ruth, drunk on wine and drunk with desire, protested inarticulately but could not bring herself to stop. In a small sober part of her mind she was watching him, calculating the days from her last period, fearing the sudden rush of his desire, terrified of pregnancy.

  He rolled on top of her, moving steadily and deliciously, Ruth opened her legs and felt her desire rise and rise to match his, but then her caution chilled her. ‘Patrick, we shouldn’t …’ she started to say.

  With a sudden delighted groan he came inside her.

  Ruth’s routine changed little after her week’s notice expired and she became freelance. She left home at the usual time and she came home, if anything, later than usual. It was as if she were afraid that any slackening would prompt Patrick to exploit her unemployment.

  ‘You could take it easy,’ he said on the first Monday.

  ‘Better not,’ Ruth said. ‘I want to show them I’m serious about getting work.’