How It All Began (23 page)

Rose glanced at her. “So?”

“Just . . . progress,” said Charlotte humbly.

Rose attacked her lasagne, without further comment. After a minute, she said, “Dictionaries. Which do you reckon is the best?”

“Ah,” said Charlotte happily. “Now Chambers has its fans, but I suppose in the last resort the Shorter Oxford . . .”

The bookshop has many dictionaries. A shelf of dictionaries. Rose and Anton cruise dictionaries, taking down now this, now that.

“Too heavy,” says Rose. “You can’t lug that around.”

“Lug?” says Anton. “That I do not know. Carry, I think? Yes, I need a dictionary very much.”

“Maybe this . . .” Rose is on the verge of selection. They consider the choice, heads together.

“I try a word,” says Anton. “Say to me a word I do not know.”

“Oh, goodness . . . Charismatic.”

“How do you spell?” Anton turns the pages. “Yes. Here. ‘Charisma . . . a special personal . . .’ ”—he struggles, valiantly, wrestles his way through—“‘. . . quality or power that enables an individual to impress or influence many of his fellows.’ Now I say to the site manager, ‘It is a pity you are not more charismatic.’“

They are both laughing. A passing head turns; can dictionaries be so amusing?

And Rose knows that dictionaries will never be the same again. Dictionaries will be forever imbued, sanctified, significant, suggestive. They will not be just themselves, but this moment, these moments, being here, like this, in this place, her and him, in this now. She will always have this now, tethered to Collins and Chambers and the Shorter Oxford.

Charlotte was quarreling with Henry James. That is to say, she was finding James’s sentence constructions a bit too much, on a warm afternoon in the garden. Get to the point, man—stop piling on another phrase, another qualification, another flourish. Yes, I know it is unique, admired, an intriguing labyrinthine process, but today I am not receptive.

She put down
What Maisie Knew
, and picked up the mug of tea that Gerry had kindly brought. He was in his shed, attending to that table. She could hear woodwork sounds, and his radio—there was cricket on somewhere.

And where had Rose gone, this Saturday afternoon, hurrying off with a preoccupied look, saying that she had some shopping to do?

Charlotte sighed, engulfed by a wave of discontent. When will
I
be off somewhere once more on a Saturday afternoon, or indeed any other afternoon? One was not exactly skipping hither and thither, pre-mugging, but well able to come and go, walk to the bus-stop without a second thought, make a trip to the garden center, or into town for a spree to the Royal Academy or Tate Britain. When will I cease to be tethered, hobbled, grounded?

Stop whingeing. The hip is improving, you know that. Crutch-free to the garden gate now—a stab at the corner shop tomorrow.

“Not Starbucks,” says Anton. “We go somewhere else, yes? Perhaps this place—how do you say it?”

“Euphorium. Odd name for a café-cum-bakery. It means—oh, being in a heightened state, being very . . . uplifted, happy.”

“Then I think this is very much the right place.” He turns to her and smiles. That smile. He puts a hand under her arm to steady her up a rather steep step. They stand at the counter and contemplate apple tart, chocolate tart, strawberry and cream tart, chocolate éclair.

“Cappuccino, please,” says Rose. “And . . . no, I mustn’t, I’m getting fat enough as it is.”

“You are not fat. And I shall have strawberry and cream tart.”

“Oh, all right. They look irresistible.”

Once served and seated, Anton reaches into his rucksack for the dictionary. “How do you spell this irri—irrisist . . . ?”

“
No
,” says Rose. “If you’re going to dive into the dictionary every time I open my mouth we shall never have a conversation again.”

“All right.” The dictionary is returned to the rucksack. “So I dive instead into strawberry and cream tart. That is good way to speak? Good colloquial? See, that is a word I know.”

“It’ll do.”

“I learn from the boys. In the flat, in the evenings. They tell me what is colloquial speak. Street speak, they say. Most is bad words. But I say now, ‘Cheers, mate’ and ‘see you later.’ ”

“A long way from
Where the Wild Things Are
and
Charlotte’s Web
,” says Rose.

“Children book, crossword, newspaper, advertisement . . . my nephew street speak . . . I learn from all sort.”

“Across the board,” advises Rose. “That’s polite colloquial.”

“Thank you. I should make list—two list, polite and not polite.”

“I made lists of words when I was about fourteen. I remember doing it. New words. Grown-up words. Show-off words.”

“What words?”

“I’m not telling you,” says Rose. “Or that dictionary will come out again. I was trying to impress my parents. It wasn’t easy, being the child of teachers.”

“Your mother is so clever teacher. She teach without you know you have been . . . teached.”

“Taught. Oh,
listen
to me . . . I’m doing it too.”

He laughs. “But you must. I would do the same, if you try to speak my language.”

She sighs. “Do you feel . . . do you sometimes feel that there is . . . that there’s a sort of wall between us because we don’t speak the same language, think in the same language?”

He looks at her. An intent, considering look. “No,” he says. “There is no wall. Where is the wall?”

The garden shed had fallen silent. Presently, Gerry emerged, looking disconsolate.

“I’ve done something stupid. Mucked up a perfectly good piece of wood. Miscalculation.”

“How annoying. Have another cup of tea, to steady the nerves—and I’d love one too.”

He came back, with tea, and sat beside her. He picked up Henry James. “I’ve never read him, I’m afraid.”

“An acquired taste,” said Charlotte. “I go off him at times, and then find myself back on. This afternoon I’m off, for some reason. Interesting, the way a relationship with a book, a writer, can be a bit like real life relationships, with friends.” She thought of Gerry’s friends—the two or three that she had met. Alan, with whom Gerry occasionally played squash. Bill, to whom he gave a lift on choir nights. And there was an old college contemporary who visited once in a while.

“Friends . . .” He considered. “I find mine stay much the same.”

“That’s to your credit. My relationships have waxed and waned. I am guilty right now about an old friend I rather keep at arm’s length.”

“I don’t have that many,” said Gerry. “Rose . . . Rose is forever on the phone, or meeting up with someone.”

“Women,” she told him. “That’s women. We’re much more intimate. We tell each other things, confide, all that. We associate. Well, men associate, but not in the same way.”

Gerry looked faintly perturbed, as though stepping onto dangerous ground. “You may be right.”

“What do you talk about with . . . Alan, say, or Bill?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . .” Contained panic now, definitely. “Current affairs, that sort of thing. Work, sometimes. The cricket, if there is any.”

“Exactly. Focused. Practical. Men are more serious than women. Women’s talk is more haphazard. And confidential.”

“Some men,” said Gerry, rallying. “Some women.”

“Oh, of course. A wild generalization. A travesty. But there’s still a point.”

“Haphazard . . .”

“Talk for the sake of talk. Unconsidered.”

“Plenty of men I know . . .”

Charlotte laughed. “I think I’m winding you up, Gerry. At least I’ve taken your mind off the carpentry. And all prompted by Henry James.”

He picked the book up again. “Who is Maisie?”

“A child. And what she knew—or didn’t know—is a teaser. I’ve never quite been able to work it out. I suppose that’s one reason it’s a book you go back to.”

He gave her a sideways look. “So maybe you should try out that old friend of yours again, too?”

“Touché,” said Charlotte. “Well done. Would it be binge-drinking to have yet more tea, do you think?”

He held out his hand for her mug. “Feel free. And we can go on with this haphazard talk.” Another sideways glance, with the hint of a grin.

Rose and Anton are walking toward the Tube station. She slows up as they approach a green space with seats. “Shall we stop for a minute or two?”

“You are tired.”

“No. Just . . . there’s no great hurry.”

They sit. “Tonight I dive into the dictionary,” he says. “My nephew and the boys, they dive into beer and street speak. I learn important words.”

“Will they laugh at you?”

“Of course. But it is nice laugh—I am the uncle, I do uncle thing, like read books and now buy dictionary. They are . . . they are . . .”

“Indulgent,” says Rose. “And
no
. No dictionary.”

“Later, then. Later I look for this word and I think of . . . now. I think of you.”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I’ll be thinking too.” She looks away.

He lays a hand on her knee. Withdraws it at once. They sit in silence for a moment. Moments.

“It is the end of the afternoon,” he says. “I do not like now the end of the afternoon. It is a bad time.”

“But we had a good time.”

“We had a
very
good time.”

“Some other afternoon,” she says. “We could . . .”

“There can be other afternoon?”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes.”

And later, in the wasteland of a sleepless night, she thinks: Can there be another life? Could there? Don’t think of it. Don’t.

J
eremy made sure to be at the restaurant first. He wanted to
be sitting there, watching the door, when Stella came in, so that he could get to his feet, and stand waiting for her, looking . . . well, looking thrilled and welcoming, and, one hoped, a welcome sight. He had chosen the venue with care—an Italian place where the background music was unobtrusive, and there were dimly lit secluded corners. A courtship restaurant. He had taken Marion there once, early on. No matter. She hadn’t cared for it—something wrong with the decor.

He saw Stella arrive, hand her coat to the man, glance around. She was looking so pretty. Never seen that dress before—gorgeous color, suits her a treat.

She joined him: “Hello.” No move to kiss him, so he made no injudicious lunge at her cheek, just smiled, pulled back her chair. “Stella . . . This is wonderful.”

Discussion of the menu. “Fritto di mare? You used to love that. I thought a frascati to drink—or would you rather red.” The wait till food came, with chat about the girls. Stella was stiff, cautious, holding back. He raised a smile with a family joke about Daisy and her passion for shopping.

Food. Frascati. And she was starting to thaw. He told her about some bizarre customers he’d had lately. The woman who collected
vintage deck chairs actually raised a laugh. He told her about the sale at that Shropshire mansion, and the pile of William Morris curtains for which he’d entered into a bidding war with a hard-nosed woman dealer (one didn’t mention that Marion had come along on that occasion, of course): “I was absolutely determined that crone wasn’t going to get them—I knew her of old, she lurks like a spider in an awful dive in Hackney, and the stuff was super, much too good for her. You’ve always liked William Morris, haven’t you, darling?”

She was responding. A definite thaw. She told one or two little anecdotes of her own. They were having a dialogue. No mention of the matter in question—the matter possibly in question, reconciliation. But no mention of divorce, either. They were a couple enjoying a meal together. Lovers, perhaps, to a casual observer. At one point he took her hand for a moment, and it was not removed. Not immediately.

At the end, bill paid, coats on, he said, “Can we do this again, darling?”

She looked away, fiddled with a button, hesitated. “So long as Gill doesn’t know. And . . . and Mr. Newsome.”

Jeremy was about to say, “It’s none of their bloody business.” Then he saw how this could be interesting. He nodded. “Of course. It’s just between you and me.”

And so it all began. A lunch. Surreptitious phone calls. Texts. Once, they walked to the river, hand in hand, and he kissed her on a seat on the Embankment. Still, nothing was said about the future. Fine, play it by ear. And in the meantime, there was something distinctly enjoyable about the present.

It wouldn’t do for Marion to know about this. Jeremy had the feeling that Marion was getting more perfunctory about their relationship; he wouldn’t put it past her to dump him. And he didn’t want that; he needed her. Of course, she’d known all along that he was determined not to let Stella divorce him, and that was one thing, but for her to sense that he was having . . . well, a rather delicious sort of
affair
with Stella was another. She’d slam the door on him.

Clandestine meetings with your wife were titillating—no getting away from it. The whole situation made Jeremy feel boyish, rather naughty. And it had lent Stella a new charm. She was so attractive; he
fancied her something rotten, and was dying to get into bed, but that meant taking her to the flat, which was a decidedly unromantic site. He’d have to think about this.

Marion had had to extend her overdraft. She had had to go cap in hand to the bank. The figures terrified her. Never before has she been in this situation, or anything like it. And all because of a wretched man she had fetched up lunching alongside on an occasion she should never have been at in any case.

She took legal advice. The advice was exactly as she had anticipated. She did indeed have a claim, a considerable claim, but one that it could take years to pursue. The legal adviser would make some checks on George Harrington—“We can keep a tab on him, at the very least”—but could only recommend patience. Resignation, more like, thought Marion.

In the meantime, money was going out—hemorrhaging out—but not coming in. The trophy wives were still not making over a sitting-room or a bedroom. Marion tried a mailshot to old clients, to remind them of her existence, with enticing suggestions about new fabrics she had sourced, new wallpapers.

She was tired, stressed. I need a break, she thought. A couple of days away, diversion, stop thinking about this all of the time. Where? Who with? Well, Jeremy, I suppose. He’d be pleased, anyway—it’s not usually me who suggests an outing. She rang him.