That Man Simon (11 page)

It was about seven o’clock, and both her grandparents were out, when the door bell rang. Her instinct told her it was Simon, and she was tempted not to answer the door.

But probably he could hear the radio and knew there was someone at home.

The sight of him made nonsense of her hope that the past two weeks had weakened his attraction for her.

‘Hello. I came to ask if you would like to come over for coffee and a look round,’ he said, smiling down at her.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tonight. I - I have to wash my hair,’

Jenny said flatly.

One eyebrow lifted a fraction. ‘I see. Well, perhaps some other evening.’

‘Yes ... thank you.’ She swallowed. ‘Did Polly tell you I had suggested bringing her home every day now?’

‘Yes, but we can’t impose on you to that extent.’

‘It’s no trouble. I’d be glad to do it. If I was staying in the city for the evening, I could always ring you up.’

‘Well, if you’re sure it wouldn’t be a nuisance ...’

‘Not at all.’

There was a pause, until Simon said, ‘All right, then.

Thanks, Jenny. Good night.’

‘Good night,’ she answered hollowly.

After he had turned away, she closed the door and leaned limply against it for some minutes. It was obvious that he had not believed her excuse about washing her hair.

What had he thought?

The following evening, taking some letters to the post for her grandfather, Jenny met Fenella Waring also bound for the pillar box.

‘I met your new neighbour again yesterday. He’s a charmer, isn’t he?’ Fenella said, as they walked to the Market Gross together. ‘I’m dying to see the inside of his house. I hear he’s got some child living with him. Is he a widower?’

‘No, Polly is his niece. She’s an orphan,’ Jenny said briefly.

‘I see. Rather a bore for him, I should think. I wonder why he isn’t married?’ Fenella said speculatively.

Glancing sideways at her, Jenny saw she was smiling to herself. Surely Fenella was not going to set her cap at Simon now?

‘How’s John?’ she asked abruptly.

‘As besotted as ever,’ Fenella said airily. ‘Don’t look so shocked, sweetie. I can’t stop him being crazy about me, can I?’

‘You could stop encouraging him if you don’t intend to marry him.’

‘But I haven’t made up my mind yet. You can’t talk.

Everyone knows James is in love with you, but the banns aren’t up yet, are they?’

‘That’s our business,’ Jenny said frostily.

‘And John is mine,’ the older girl retorted, without heat.

‘Anyway, if I do turn him down, he’s much too stolid to jump in the river and end it all.’ She gave Jenny a sly glance. ‘I wouldn’t say the same of James. If you won’t have him, who will? He might do something drastic.’

‘That’s a foul thing to say!’ Jenny exclaimed.

‘Oh, don’t be so boringly goody-goody, Jenny,’ Fenella said, with an impatient jerk on Pascal’s lead, as the little dog stopped to sniff a lamp post. ‘There are enough sanctimonious hypocrites in this place already. I get so bored I could scream.’

‘Why don’t you go back to London, then?’

‘Maybe I will, and then again maybe I won’t.’ The secretive smile was playing about Fenella’s full red lips again. ‘There’s one person who doesn’t bore me,’ she said, half to herself.

Jenny thrust her letters into the mouth of the box. She had never liked Fenella, but at that moment she positively hated her.

‘Good night,’ she said shortly, and marched away down the street.

One evening the following week, Jenny got home to find her grandmother wearing her nicest dress, the one Jenny had bought her the year before for a Harvest Supper.

‘Hello, are you going out tonight, Granny?’ she asked.

‘Yes, we all are, dear. Mr. Gilchrist came over at lunch time to ask us to have dinner with him next door.’

‘I can’t. I’ve promised to go out with James,’ Jenny said rapidly.

‘Oh, Jenny, you didn’t mention it. Can’t you put it off?

James won’t mind, I’m sure.’

Hating herself for lying, Jenny said, ‘No, I can’t, I’m afraid. He ... he’s got tickets for a concert. You’ll have to apologize to Mr. Gilchrist for me. After all, it is very short notice, isn’t it?’

Presently, when her grandmother was out of earshot, she rang up James and suggested that, as it was such a lovely evening, they might run over to the coast for a bathe.

It was half past eleven when her grandparents came home, by which time Jenny was in her pyjamas and dressing-gown, having a cup of cocoa in the kitchen.

‘We are night-birds, aren’t we?’ Mrs. Shannon said, looking as flushed and excited as a child who had been allowed to stay up late. ‘Oh, we did have a pleasant evening, dear. Such a pity you couldn’t come. Did you enjoy the concert?’

Jenny nodded. ‘Would you like some cocoa, Gran?’

‘No, thank you, dear. We had wine at dinner — Mrs.

Rose is an excellent cook — and then a most delicious liqueur afterwards. I shall sleep like a log tonight.’

‘What is the house like inside?’

‘Oh, most attractive. I’ve never seen anything like it. All the latest modern gadgets - but not a bit bare and bleak, as I had imagined. And so easy to run, Mrs. Rose says. The little girl showed me her room before she went to bed. What a dear little soul she is. Such nice manners. Oh, and the view from the sitting-room, Jenny! When the garden is all laid out properly, it will be lovely.’ Mrs. Shannon was so filled with enthusiasm that she would have gone on talking half the night if her husband had not come in from locking up and said it was high time they were in bed.

At breakfast next morning, she was still full of the many novel features and labour-saving devices at Flint House.

‘How I wish there had been all these things when I was a young wife,’ she said wistfully.

‘What did Mr. Gilchrist say when you told him I couldn’t come?’ Jenny asked.

‘He quite understood, dear. I explained that James had an evening surgery twice a week, and that he didn’t like to leave his mother alone too often, so you couldn’t get out together as much as you’d like.’

‘You didn’t—’ Jenny stopped short.

She had been about to say You didn’t tell him that James and I are practically engaged, did you?

‘Didn’t what, dear?’

‘Oh ... nothing.’

Mrs. Shannon studied her for a moment. ‘It’s a good thing the term ends next week. You’ve looked rather run down lately, dear. You need a rest,’ she said.

Two days before the school broke up for the long summer holidays, Jenny and Polly were walking home from the bus stop when they saw Mrs. Shannon coming to meet them.

‘Jenny, Mrs. Rose has had to go into the city. Someone rang up for her early this afternoon. It seems her daughter’s baby has arrived three weeks early, and there’s no one to look after the rest of the family. Poor Mrs. Rose was very worried because Mr. Gilchrist is in London today. But I told her Polly could have tea with us, and then you could put her to bed and stay in the house until her uncle gets back.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Jenny agreed. ‘Come on, Polly: come and see our house.’

After tea, Jenny got out the box of ivory spillikins which had belonged to the Rector as a small boy, and taught Polly how to play the game. Soon it was time for the child to go to bed and they walked round to the next door house. As she unlocked the armour-glass front door with the key Mrs.

Rose had left with her grandmother, Jenny felt a queer thrust of excitement.

Polly insisted on showing her all over the house, except for Mrs. Rose’s bed-sitting-room which, she explained solemnly, was private.

‘This is where Uncle Simon sleeps,’ she said, opening the door of a room overlooking the garden.

Jenny glimpsed a wide double bed with a tailored cover of dark green linen, a crimson leather armchair and - by the picture window - a sloping drawing table with some specification sheets on it.

‘I think this is private, too, Polly,’ she said, after one brief glance.

She supervised the child’s bath in the luxurious black marble bathroom, and then heard her prayers and tucked her into bed.

‘Did your uncle go to London by train? Did he say what time he expected to be back, Polly?’

‘No, he went in the car. I don’t think he’ll be back for a long time. He told Mrs. Rose not to wait up for him, and she doesn’t go to bed till ever so late. She has a television in her room and watches it till it stops.’

‘Well, it doesn’t really matter how late he is. There are plenty of books for me to read in the sitting-room. Good night, pet. Sleep tight.’ Jenny gave the child a light kiss.

Rather to her surprise, Polly slid her arms round her neck and gave her a quick shy hug.

As Jenny left the room, the telephone rang. It was Mrs.

Rose, anxious to know if everything was all right.

‘Yes, of course, Mrs. Rose. Don’t worry, I’m sure Mr.

Gilchrist will understand. How is your daughter?’

Already a grandmother of four girls, the housekeeper now had a grandson who weighed nine pounds in spite of his early arrival.

After they had rung off, Jenny could not resist another look round the kitchen section with its split-level cooking units, and double stainless steel sinks and custom-made Oregon pine fitments. There was a gleaming copper extractor hod above electric hobs built-in to the plastic work counter, and the floor was laid with mosaic-patterned vinyl the colour of cornflowers. At present the kitchen was open to the main living area, but could be shut away, she saw, by sliding glass screens.

Disinclined to read - although there were several hundreds of books on shelf units along the cedar-panelled walls of the living area, Jenny watched some television on the built-in set, keeping the volume low in case it disturbed Polly. Later, she made herself a pot of tea, and sat looking out over the garden at the sun sinking down in a rose-flecked mackerel sky.

Slowly it grew dusk. The light went on in her grandfather’s study. An owl swooped out of the lime trees.

Jenny went to peep at Polly. When she came back she did not switch on the lights, but curled up on the couch again until it was almost dark.

Suddenly the room was aglow with light from the lamp on the coffee table. Sitting up with a start, she realized that she had been asleep. Then she saw Simon standing in the shadows by the two shallow stairs that led into the hall.

‘Oh ... what time is it?’

‘Nearly midnight. What are you doing here?’

Blinking, stiff from the awkward position she had been lying in, Jenny gave him a rather muddled account of what had happened.

‘I see.’ He switched on some more lights and came forward to the table, where he took a cigarette from a silver box.

As he straightened to light it, she saw that he looked tired and rather drawn. And suddenly she knew that what she felt for him was no transient physical attraction, no giddy infatuation. She was deeply and irrevocably in love with him.

‘I’ll see you home,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you up so late.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Let me get you something to eat. It’s a long drive back from London. Or did you stop for a meal on the way?’

‘I had something before I left town.’

‘That was hours ago. I’ll make some coffee and toast,’ she said firmly, picking up her tea tray and carrying it back to the kitchen. ‘Where does Mrs. Rose keep the bread?’

Simon followed her and pulled open a deep ventilated drawer lined with laminated plastic. Then he leaned against one of the units, watching her slice the loaf and load the electric toaster, his eyes narrowed and intent.

Conscious of dishevelled hair and sleep-flushed cheeks, Jenny said, ‘Is my nose shining like a beacon? I must have been asleep since about ten.’

‘You were dreaming. When I switched on the lamp, your lips were moving,’ he said.

‘Was I? I don’t remember.’

I only know that I woke up and saw you, and knew I loved you, she thought. And she was afraid to look at him for fear it might show in her eyes.

Simon ate and drank in silence, and Jenny cradled her cup between her palms and felt another, deeper warmth spreading inside her, making her feel more wholly alive than she had ever felt before. She was not in the least tired now. There was a delightful intimacy about being up so late with him, sharing a simple supper. Probably they were the only two people awake in the whole village, and she would have been happy to stay there till dawn.

But after he had drunk a second cup of coffee, Simon said, ‘It’s high time you were in bed. The dishes can wait until the morning.’

There was a waxing moon in the sky, and they had no need of a torch to see their way round to the Rectory. But Simon slid his hand under her arm, as they walked along the road and up the drive.

She wondered what he would say if she suggested that it was much too lovely a night to be wasted in sleep, and she felt like going for a walk. A spasm of laughter shook her.

He must have felt it, and thought she was cold, for he quickened his pace.

In the shadow of the porch, he said softly, ‘Thanks for holding the fort, Jenny. Good night.’

She crept silently upstairs to her room, and a few minutes later she saw the light go on in his bedroom, illuminating the terrace. Then, after about fifteen minutes, it went out again, and she put on her own lamp and began to undress.