‘You are not meant to,’ said Brian. ‘What’s this butter for, Mavis?’

  ‘Laura asked for it,’ said Mavis, standing gracefully near the table.

  ‘Will she pay for it?’ asked Brian.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Okay, we will eat it. She seems also to have left us a croissant.’ He split the croissant and shared it with Susie. ‘Have another coffee?’ he suggested to Claud.

  ‘Thanks very much, that would be nice.’ Claud sat back. He had been in half a mind to run after Laura, make a date to be taken to see Mrs Kennedy’s loft or at least arrange another meeting.

  ‘Irish?’ enquired Mavis, gaining his attention; she looked bored, as though she was chewing gum, which she was not.

  ‘Welsh,’ said Claud, banishing her boredom. ‘Is she always like that?’ he reverted to Laura. ‘She left rather suddenly. I thought she—er—’

  ‘When we warm up we smell of dung,’ said Brian. ‘It offends Laura’s delicate nose.’

  Susie snuffled with laughter into her glass of wine.

  Claud was uncertain whether Brian was serious; he felt it would be offensive on such a short acquaintance to sniff, yet Brian did look very earthy, his fingernails rimmed in brown, his green wellies streaked with what might easily be manure. Mavis put another mug of coffee in front of him. ‘Oh,’ said Claud, ‘oh dear! She went off without—oh—I must—oh.’ He clapped a hand to his breast pocket.

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Mavis, standing very close. ‘She keeps an account here. I’m off soon,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you home to see my mother if you are really interested in the loft. Have you finished, Brian and Susie? Because if you have I want to clear the table.’

  ‘How brutal you are,’ said Susie, refusing to be rushed. ‘They don’t employ you here to harass us customers.’

  ‘They don’t know that I do,’ said Mavis, gathering plates and cups onto a tray. ‘Come on, have a heart. I want to get home and wash my hair.’

  ‘Have you noticed Mavis’ hair?’ asked Brian, keeping a tight hold of his wine glass. ‘It really is that colour, she doesn’t do anything to it.’

  ‘Tangerine,’ said Susie. ‘And her eyes are jade, her teeth like little chips of carrara marble.’ She nudged Claud. ‘You hadn’t noticed how delicious she is, had you?’

  ‘He was taken up with Laura,’ said Brian. ‘Can I pay next week, Mavis dear?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Mavis, snatching Brian’s glass and clunking it onto her tray. ‘Only Laura has a special arrangement, you know that.’

  ‘Oh, all right, you great bully.’ Brian reached for his coat, handed Susie hers. ‘This should cover it.’ He gave Mavis a ten pound note. ‘Keep the change.’

  ‘I’m not proud,’ said Mavis, laughing. ‘I won’t be a minute,’ she said to Claud, ‘if you care to wait.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ said Claud, ‘thanks.’ My goodness, he thought, she is pretty; how could I not have noticed?

  Brian was buttoning Susie into her jacket as though she was a small child. ‘Where’s your woolly hat?’ he asked.

  Claud watched them, amused. He felt elated at meeting these new people, Laura’s friends.

  ‘In your pocket.’ Susie let herself be dressed by Brian, who now put a wool cap on her head. ‘Laura wouldn’t let you do this to her,’ she remarked, sitting doll-like.

  ‘Laura would not let me get a leg over her, either,’ said Brian.

  ‘I wouldn’t let you try,’ said Susie amiably. ‘Not over anyone and particularly not over Laura.’

  ‘All the same, one wonders what motivates her.’ Brian gently pushed tendrils of Susie’s hair up under her cap with a large forefinger, then leaned forward and kissed her mouth.

  ‘Sex?’ suggested Susie, returning the kiss.

  ‘Who with?’ asked Claud, watching them.

  ‘One doesn’t know,’ said Brian.

  ‘There are lots of stories,’ said Susie.

  ‘Nothing you can pin down,’ said Brian.

  ‘Is she married?’ asked Claud. ‘Or was she, ever?’

  ‘That’s one thing that is known: she’s not nor ever was.’

  ‘Does one know why not?’ Claud persisted. He felt a need to know, was there some sadness? ‘Did some bloke betray her?’

  ‘That’s a mystery, but any betraying to be done would have been done by Laura.’ Susie surprised him by her cattiness.

  Claud felt angry with Susie. Laura had left them so suddenly, she had made herself defenceless. Unequal to the task on such short acquaintance, he was grateful to Mavis who, rejoining them, had overheard Susie’s remarks.

  ‘You may be wrong there,’ said Mavis. ‘My mum has a theory that Laura wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  Claud recollected his own parent the evening before suggesting a heart of nougat.

  Brian said, ‘An older woman, out of the race, would be a better judge than you, Susie.’

  ‘Perhaps she is just self-sufficient,’ suggested Mavis. ‘It’s not absolutely necessary, as you men seem to think, for every girl to have a man,’ she added tartly.

  ‘Just nicer,’ said Susie, getting to her feet.

  ‘See you in the market when you’ve got your stall,’ said Susie, now ready to leave. ‘Brian and I will show you anything Laura forgets to tell you. Bye.’

  ‘Goodbye, see yer,’ said Brian. ‘Come on, sugar.’ He pushed Susie out ahead of him.

  ‘Brrr,’ exclaimed Susie, gasping in the frosty air. ‘Icicles!’

  ‘Are they really married?’ Claud asked Mavis, who stood now beside him, buttoned into an overcoat several sizes too large.

  ‘Common law,’ said Mavis. ‘Come on.’

  Laura, rising from the dentist’s chair in the surgery across the street where she had been having her teeth scaled and polished, watched Claud take Mavis’ arm as they stepped out of the wine bar. ‘You certainly see local life from your window, Mr Owen.’

  ‘I haven’t time,’ said the dentist, ‘or the inclination. See you again in six months, Miss Thornby. Next,’ he said into the intercom.

  ‘You miss a lot,’ said Laura, ignoring his rudeness.

  ‘Ah, well.’ He was impatient to see her go.

  And what am I missing? Laura speculated as she descended the stairs. What have I missed, she questioned as she wrapped her coat round her against the cold wind, swung her scarf round her neck as she stood on the dentist’s doorstep. Far down the street she could see Claud’s fair head lean towards Mavis’ orange aureole as they broke into a trot to avoid an oncoming car. She turned to walk in the opposite direction, lengthening her stride. I wonder why he is against fish. What would Freud say? More to the point, what do I say? She smiled as she thought that there was really no need for her to miss anything.

  Brian and Susie, passing her in their battered old Land-Rover, waved, assuming that Laura’s smile was for them.

  ‘Found yourself a toy boy?’

  Laura, turning, stood nose to nose with Nicholas Thornby who, softly shod, had crept up behind her.

  ‘Looking at you, dear Nicholas,’ she answered at a tangent, ‘I can see what I shall look like when I am really old.’ She stepped back a pace to observe him better. ‘A trim figure, not too wrinkled but pretty thin on top,’ she said, amused that he should bother to jerk his stomach in for her, a reflex action.

  ‘You’ll be so lucky, your mother and I are uniquely preserved. But who is the boy? He’s pretty,’ Nicholas persisted.

  ‘Claud Bannister.’

  ‘Margaret Bannister’s boy? He used to be so spotty, I didn’t recognise him.’

  ‘Ever beautiful, you must have had your share of acne in your day? I know I did.’

  ‘It’s too far back to remember. Why are you taking him up? I saw you with him in the market. You don’t usually go for lame dogs.’

  ‘Does he look lame?’ Laura wrapped her scarf tighter against the icy wind. ‘Rather than live on the dole, he’s going to run a junk stall in the market,’ she said.

  ‘How laudable.’ Nicholas’ tone indicated doubt.

  ‘I thought I’d offer him a look round the Old Rectory attics, it’s high time some of the debris was cleared out.’

  ‘You may have to ask Emily’s and my permission.’

  ‘I shall, perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t know what Emily will say.’

  ‘She will ask if it’s in a good cause and if it’s not, she’ll be glad of a clearance.’

  ‘How well you know her.’ Nicholas grinned. ‘One questions whether a toy boy is a good cause.’ Laura did not respond to this. ‘But there may be treasures in that attic,’ Nicholas prevaricated. ‘One can’t be too careful. Priceless Ming vases used as umbrella stands, one reads in the paper,’ he said, laughing.

  ‘That’s not very likely.’ It was Laura’s turn to laugh. ‘Quite a lot of stuff was put there by me, things the dustmen refused to move.’

  ‘Oh those dustmen! Bone idle scroungers.’

  Laura blinked her eyes, which were watering from the wind, and sniffed, twitching a nose that was a feminine version of Nicholas’. ‘I know you vote Tory,’ she said as she stepped aside to allow a woman pushing a double buggy to pass.

  ‘One should not pander to the unemployed,’ said Nicholas, stepping back close to her.

  ‘So I have frequently heard you say. We are blocking the pavement,’ said Laura.

  ‘I also saw you chatting to him at the concert the other night.’

  ‘I have an idea he once worked in a fish shop,’ said Laura, sowing a red herring in Nicholas’ mind.

  ‘I thought you were interested in that Rumanian conductor (that was pretty trashy stuff, wasn’t it?). Isn’t it a bit of a comedown to switch to a fishmonger?’

  ‘The Rumanian has gone back to Romania.’

  ‘A communist country, no joy there, I agree. One could see you weren’t much interested but he wasn’t lame, was he?’

  ‘Not so that you’d notice.’

  ‘And this Claud Bannister, shall you lame him?’

  ‘The traffic warden has just stuck a ticket on the windscreen of your car, Nicholas.’ A man in a tweed hat adorned with salmon flies tossed the information over his shoulder as he elbowed past Laura. ‘While you stand there gassing like an old maid, blocking the way of legitimate shoppers, you get ticketed. Just wait till they bring clamps to the town!’ His voice faded as he hurried out of earshot.

  ‘Damn and blast, that’s the third this month,’ said Nicholas. ‘Your fault for keeping me talking,’ he said nastily.

  Laura smiled. ‘Too bad. Tough,’ she said.

  ‘He’s a bit young for a toy boy,’ Nicholas niggled.

  ‘I heard he was a lift boy in some hotel.’ Laura tried a fresh herring.

  ‘What versatility! Those tight trousers and bumfreezer jackets. Not my style, alas. I would hardly think—’

  ‘Nicholas,’ said a tweedy lady burdened with shopping, ‘that fiend of a warden has stuck a ticket on your—’

  ‘I know, I know,’ cried Nicholas, furiously. ‘What’s it got to do with you, you silly cow?’ He began to move back down the street to his car.

  Laura watched Nicholas go with detachment. Then she shouted after him, ‘I’ll treat you and Emily to a booze-up tonight, how about it? A pub crawl?’

  Nicholas waved an arm in acknowledgment. Laura continued on her way, leaning slightly into the wind, protecting her face with her scarf, wondering why she felt protective towards Claud; he wouldn’t thank me for the fishmonger or the lifts, she thought, but maybe he will when he’s famous.

  Christopher Peel, sitting beside his wife Helen driving their BMW, noticed Laura as she parted from Nicholas. Craning his neck the better to look back, he reflected not for the first time that there were compensations in having a wife who did not trust one’s driving. One could see what was going on without being accused of risking an accident.

  ‘That’s Laura in another garish outfit,’ said Helen, who was suspected by some of having eyes in the back of her head. ‘God knows why she wears such an outrageous combination of colours; somebody should tell her.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell her?’ Losing sight of Laura as Helen accelerated through the traffic, Christopher slewed his eyes towards his wife. A greater contrast than Helen’s clothes with Laura’s would be hard to find, he thought, appraising Helen’s sensible sludge-coloured sweater and shirt, matching corduroy slacks, dull green waxed waterproof jacket with corduroy collar, brown felt hat. ‘Sludge,’ he said, assessing his wife’s complexion (nothing worse than a fading suntan with mouse-coloured hair, he thought). ‘Sludge.’

  ‘What?’ said Helen.

  ‘Nothing.’ (I bet she heard me.)

  ‘I wonder what she is doing down here, she hardly ever visits Emily and Nicholas for more than day,’ said Helen.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Christopher, who knew quite well that Laura came down oftener than was generally known. ‘Perhaps she feels responsible for the old people.’

  ‘Responsible! Laura?’ Helen snorted.

  ‘Well—’

  ‘She must be up to something if she’s down for more than a day—’

  ‘She’s got her pad in the Old Rectory.’

  ‘Is she having an affair with that red composer?’

  ‘What red composer? I thought he was the conductor.’ Christopher betrayed himself.

  ‘Don’t be dim, Christopher, the man who wrote that awful stuff we had to sit through at the charity concert; that man.’

  ‘How would I know?’ (Sitting in the wine bar with that boy. If she’d been on her own as she usually is, I would have gone in and asked her why the hell she—)

  ‘She’s an old flame of yours.’

  ‘Not that again! Oh God, Helen, why can’t you lay off? Any small flicker I may have had with Laura was twenty-five years ago.’

  ‘More than that.’

  ‘So you know it all. Why don’t you tackle Laura yourself? Tell her you don’t like her clothes, ask her who she is sleeping with, why she visits her mother, why—’

  ‘No need to fly off the handle.’ Helen changed gear.

  ‘I am not flying—’

  ‘You are so touchy about Laura.’

  ‘It is you who are touchy about Laura, Helen, you never stop, you—’

  ‘I never mention Laura. I just happened to notice her at the concert the other night and to make a small observation just now. No need to blow it up—’

  ‘Christ, Helen, Laura and I were practically brought up together. We were childhood friends, she was constantly in our house, she—’

  ‘She would have married you if your father hadn’t put his foot down. I don’t suppose your mother had a clue—so wrapped up in herself, her bloody dogs and her ridiculous garden.’

  ‘Look, Helen.’ Christopher raised his voice, shouting above the noise of a lorry Helen was overtaking. ‘Laura never wanted to marry me, she—’

  ‘Of course she did. Obviously she wanted your money and the house. God knows what she would have done with the garden if she’d got her hands on it.’

  ‘She did not want to marry me!’ Christopher shouted, and a hitherto somnolent old labrador raised its head from among the parcels and packages on the back seat and barked. ‘When will you get it into your stupid head that there was never any question of marriage between Laura and me? The moment she was old enough, she upsticked and beat it to London. She made a career for herself, she has her own business—’

  ‘A pretty small one—’

  ‘—I don’t see why you should be so upset and—’

  ‘It’s you who seem to be upset.’ Helen paused by the traffic lights on the edge of the town.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Actually,’ said Helen as the lights turned to green, ‘if you hadn’t flown into this silly temper, I was leading up to the fact that I have a small job—’

  ‘For her small business?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘I thought you could persuade her to do it for me at cost price or something.’

  ‘I could?’

  ‘Yes, you know her better than I, as you’ve just indicated.’

  ‘So—’

  ‘And I don’t want to know her better than I do already.’

  ‘That makes two of you,’ Christopher muttered. ‘What’s the job?’ he asked. ‘I don’t see why she should do it at cost price, she has her living to make.’

  ‘It was just a thought, since you are such old buddies.’

  Disliking the word buddy Christopher thought, If I told Helen that if it were not for her I would seldom think of Laura, she wouldn’t believe me. He watched the road ahead. Perhaps, he thought, I should be grateful to Helen. Glancing at his wife’s profile he smiled, then patting her corduroy thigh he said loudly: ‘You silly old thing, what’s the job?’

  Helen proceeded to tell him.

  Laura, walking slowly in spite of the cold, watched Christopher and Helen’s car disappear and thought, Poor old, boring old Christopher. She wrapped her scarf close, pushing it up over her jaw. She dawdled, looking into a bookshop window, keeping her eyes down, not wishing to enter into chat with the bookseller, who was in his way a friend. She counted the titles: love, crime, travel, history. By dawdling it was her intention to give Nicholas time to make a scene with the traffic warden, who was lurking within insult distance of Nicholas’ car. Either the man had more courage than was good for him or he was new to the town. Only a few years ago Nicholas had tripped a warden so that, lurching against a bollard on the quay, he had fallen into the river. I cannot but admire, thought Laura, watching. The old devil does not resist his impulses; he has a dreadful, endearing, childlike quality.

  Nicholas approached his car; the warden, taller and burlier than Nicholas, stood his ground (Laura asked herself which of the two men needed her protection). Nicholas snatched the ticket stuck behind his wiper and tore it across. Obeying an instinct similar to that of a dog confronted by a cat, its back arched, its mouth spitting, the warden shrugged and turned away.

  Laura chuckled, ran her tongue over her freshly scaled teeth and, relaxing, let her thoughts return pleasurably to Claud, so fresh and ingenuous after Clug. He was vulnerable in a way Clug could never have been, more importantly so than Christopher in youth. I could protect Claud, she thought, then almost laughed outright as she was swept by an irresistible exultant desire to interfere, manipulate, experiment with Claud—by way of protection.

 

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