A cloud of cigarette smoke rose to envelop me as I followed Valerie downstairs. Through the teak-framed glass panels that separated hall from lounge, I could see the close-packed figures gesticulating to each other, heads nodding, fingers pointing, their faces red with heat and alcohol, their voices raised in a crescendo of noise that assaulted me like shock waves from an explosion. I clutched the banister as I felt all the colour drain from my own face.
Val turned to me at the foot of the stairs, took one look and raised an eyebrow. ‘Jenny, why don’t you sit out here for a moment. I’ll hunt up Alan and send him through to you.’
I nodded gratefully and watched her weave her way through the tight press of bodies that filled the long lounge from one end to the other. One glance at that room had been enough. The thought of being shut up with those people, their smoke, and their noise, was more than I could bear, but it was no problem to Val. Some instinct told her it was time to show herself and in she went. I watched her progress through the crowded room, amazed at the way solid groups parted before her lightest touch, responding to her smiles and waves as she passed.
And yet I had caught a look in her eye as she left me which did make me wonder just how easy she really felt. Val is a superb actress. When she makes up her mind to do something, she can carry it off with complete conviction but that says nothing at all about what the effort may cost her.
Val’s last party, I said to myself, as I sat down on the telephone seat. Mine too, perhaps.
I ran my eye over the familiar faces. Mostly our crowd, Colin would say. People from schooldays, or Queen’s, or the Rugby Club, for Bob had been a keen player too, until recently. I looked around the student pairings, now turned into ‘respectable young couples’, with someone back at the new house to look after the babies. The room was full of up-and-coming young businessmen like Colin. Useful contacts, he called them now. Not people we knew and liked, and certainly not old friends. Not any more. Just contacts. Useful or not, as the case might be.
‘An’ I sez to him, “C’mon, Charlie, wha’s this car got, solid gold bumpers?” And he sez to me, “All right, Nev, eight hundred it is. But yer a hard man.’”
There was a burst of laughter as Neville slapped hands on the bargain. I looked around to see where Karen was. At the other side of the room, she was holding forth to a tight cluster of women, her podgy fingers busy with bright, precise little movements. As the laughter died, she paused, threw one disdainful glance across at him and went back to her story. Neville’s face crumpled. Before anyone noticed, he buried his nose in his tankard.
My eyes were prickling with the drifting smoke. I closed them, leaned back, and felt the chill of the wall on my bare shoulders. I had known Neville for a long time, though I couldn’t remember exactly when his family moved into Rathmore Drive. He’d been sent to a preparatory school somewhere outside Bangor, so we only saw each other at Sunday School and later on at church socials. It was when we were both press-ganged for the church choir that I really got to know him. Every Wednesday evening we’d walk to and from choir practice on the Lisburn Road. I learnt a great deal about sport on those walks, rugby in particular. But choir practice was grim. We only managed to stick it for a year and then used studying for A-levels as an excuse to make our escape.
The October we went to Queen’s, Neville’s family moved to Malone Park. ‘A step up in the world’, was my mother’s tight-lipped comment. Neville, like Colin, was destined for the family business, glazing and double-glazing. Reluctantly, he read economics. We’d bumped into each other one day, gone to the Union for coffee and talked for ages. He admitted how much the course bored him but, as he said, there was the rugby. He had once told me that his greatest ambition was to be capped for Ireland and it was clear he was going to make it. Only a week or two later, Neville ended up at the bottom of a collapsed scrum and his broken shoulder put an end to his chances.
Now he was the father of two boys and the husband of a woman who didn’t appear to care what secretaryship of the Rugby Club might mean for him. When I thought of the way she’d behaved today and her particular brand of carping criticism, I could only think of Maisie McKinstry. Karen was a Maisie in the making and if Neville threw himself into his work the way William John had done, he might indeed end up just as rich but he would certainly be just as unhappy.
‘Jenny!’
Startled, I opened my eyes.
‘Alan,’ I cried. ‘I thought you’d abandoned ship.’
‘What, and miss seeing you twice in one year?’ he retorted. ‘No, I was on a mission,’ he went on quickly. ‘There’s enough alcohol to float a liner out there, but we appear to have drunk all the milk. ‘
I laughed and moved along the bench to make room for him.
‘I don’t quite believe this,’ I began. ‘Your last communiqué from Kilmarnock said Patterson’s had just made you an unrefusable offer.’
I watched him as he lowered himself on to the narrow seat, a familiar quizzical look on his face. As uneasy as ever in the first moments of meeting, his eyes were not quite able to meet mine, though his smile was warm and I knew he was pleased to see me.
‘Indeed they did,’ he agreed. ‘A huge increase in salary, a seat on the board, a company car and a piece of carpet under my desk.’
‘And you actually refused?’ I was totally taken aback by the edge in my voice. It sounded as if I were criticising him for turning it down, which was the last thing I’d intended. The very words ‘seat on the board’ had set off the response without any help from me.
‘I did,’ he said quietly. He looked awkwardly up and down the hall and I was sure the sharpness of my reaction had hurt him. It quite overwhelmed me to think I could ever do such a thing to Alan of all people.
I tried to pull myself together, fought back the ridiculous tears that sprang to my eyes and swallowed hard.
‘Oh Alan,’ I said, touching his sleeve. ‘How terribly unfashionable of you.’
This time I managed to get the words out as I meant them, light and teasing. As he turned back towards me, I smiled encouragingly.
‘There aren’t many in there who would have done what you did,’ I said gently as I nodded towards the crowded room.
‘But there’s one out here who might.’ He said it quietly, matter-of-factly, as he looked at me directly for the first time. For a moment or two, I wasn’t even sure I’d heard what he’d said properly over the awful racket going on only a few yards away. But as I looked back at him, I seemed to hear the words again. Ordinary words. Unexceptional words. Suddenly, they took on a meaning I had not thought of before.
He was saying that I might well have done just what he had done. He was quite right, of course. He knew perfectly well how I felt about the endless focus on money that had become such a feature among the people Colin called ‘our crowd’. Quite suddenly, I was so aware of the two of us, out here in the hall, sitting side-by-side, looking in at the party. I’d never understood Alan when he’d sometimes talked about being an outsider, the loneliness of feeling you didn’t belong. Now, I understood. I hadn’t been able to put any name to it, but this was what I’d been feeling for months. I was an outsider too. I didn’t belong in there with our crowd. There was no part I could play in their lives, nor they in mine. There were no lines for any of us to say to each other any more.
Alan and I weren’t just sitting outside, here and now, we were permanently outside. Both of us. Alan had known it for years, but until this moment it had never entered my mind that I too might be just as much of an outsider as he was.
I nodded slowly in reply and dived into the pocket of my skirt for my handkerchief. I was so shocked by where my own thoughts had taken me that just for the moment I couldn’t think of anything whatever to say.
‘Didn’t Val give you a drink before she parked you here?’ he exclaimed, abruptly jumping to his feet. ‘I’ll get us one before we get launched. What would you like?’ he added, as I blew my nose and tried to behave as if nothing had happened.
‘What is there?’ I asked brightly. I glanced up at him and caught a look on his face that made me wonder if he’d spotted that something was wrong. If he had, he covered it beautifully while I collected myself.
‘Just about everything. All the hard stuff, variety of homebrews. Hugh, Mark One, Alwyn, Mark Three, Neville, Mark Six, none of which, as a former chemist, I can recommend,’ he said lightly. ‘But there is a bottle of that dry sherry we had at Christmas. Bob produced it from the garden shed. Said he’d been keeping it till you came!’
‘Just what I need, Alan. Just what I need.’
Relief swept over me as I watched him stride off down the hall and disappear into the kitchen. Dear Alan, he hadn’t changed a bit. Not in the things that mattered most to me. For three years now we’d met only at Christmas, at the Annual General Meeting, as Val called her Boxing Night dinner. That last meeting seemed an eternity away and yet at this minute I felt as if I’d seen Alan only yesterday. It was nothing to do with how often you saw someone. It was all about what happened when you did.
I knew I could say anything I wanted to Alan. And he’d listen. Whether he agreed or disagreed, it didn’t matter. It was the sheer blessed relief of talking to someone who actually listened to what you said. And someone, too, who always gave me honest answers to my questions, even when those answers had to admit doubt or ignorance.
If there was one thing that had been making me utterly miserable over the last few months, it was Colin’s sureness about everything. From the fastest car in its class to the best place to eat out, from the time it would take to mend a washing machine to the golden future of the Province, he was so sure of himself and so completely free of doubt. All the time, he behaved as if he could map out his own future, and mine, as easily as he could plot a flow chart for a contract.
‘Here you are, Bob’s compliments. Sends his apologies. He’s on supper duty.’ Alan dropped into his seat beside me. ‘To the good old days,’ he went on, touching his glass against mine.
‘Oh Alan, you said that just the way you did when I was still at school. You used to frighten the life out of me,’ I laughed, as I sipped my sherry appreciatively.
It had taken me a long time to get used to Alan’s ironic manner, but having mastered it, I found its dryness as pleasing as the sherry Bob had so thoughtfully set aside for me.
‘Still at school,’ he repeated thoughtfully. ‘A long time ago, Jenny. How long have we known each other?’
‘Depends what you mean by “know”,’ I said lightly. ‘I can tell you the first time we spent a day together. I’ll never forget it.’
‘Sounds ominous.’
‘Yes, it was. You were in your first year at Oxford and I was only in the fourth form. Val asked me to come up with you to visit Aunt Audrey and Uncle John and she insisted I sit in the front seat. I couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say the whole way up to Ballycastle.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ he said, stretching out his legs more comfortably. ‘I’d had strict instructions to be nice to you and I thought I was going to cop it when Val got me home for making such a mess of it.’
‘And didn’t you?’
‘No, for some reason she let me off. She said you needed time to get used to me.’
‘Certainly I did. About three years!’
‘Oh, come, Jenny, was I as awful as that?’
‘Yes,’ I said laughing. ‘Everything you said seemed to be touched with acid. It was like trying to be friendly to a porcupine. But it wasn’t entirely your fault. It just took me rather a long time to work out that you weren’t quite as worldly-wise and cynical as you liked to make out.’
‘Given your tender years, that was some achievement,’ he said, looking down into his glass and shifting uneasily. ‘Come on now. You’re not that ancient.’
‘Wouldn’t you say I’ve mellowed in my maturity?’ he asked, taking refuge in the teasing tone he’d used so often to get himself out of awkward situations.
‘I hadn’t exactly noticed,’ I retorted.
‘Oh, that really disappoints me,’ he said, pulling a face. ‘Only the other day, Val said I was almost fit for human consumption.’
He’d picked up my light tone and for a few, blissful minutes I’d put aside all my anxieties. I remembered just how easily we had always been able to talk about anything. If anyone could help me sort myself out, it would be Alan. I drained my sherry glass.
‘Don’t be disappointed, Alan,’ I said quietly. ‘Some people do appreciate your astringency. I could do with a spot of it at the moment. It’s been in pretty short supply round here just recently.’
‘That we shall have to address,’ he said, jumping to his feet. ‘When I’ve fetched us a refill.’
A couple of long strides and he disappeared through the kitchen door. I smiled to myself. Those long strides had once been a problem to me. When we went out taking pictures together at Queen’s, on any reasonable surface those same strides had left me trailing far behind. We used to laugh about it, especially when I got my own back, for when it was wet rock, or seaweed, or mud, I came into my own. Alan always said he was quite intimidated by my sure-footedness.
A long time now since I’d scrambled over rock or mud in pursuit of a picture. I had forgotten just how much time we’d spent together, my first two years at Queen’s, while Alan had been studying for his PhD. Some of the best times were up on the north coast when he and Val visited their aunt and uncle in their rambling old house that looked out across Rathlin Sound to Rathlin Island itself. Aunt Audrey and Uncle John were lovely people. They made me so welcome and sent the three of us off, walking and exploring, armed with vast picnics, sketchbooks and cameras.
When Alan and I joined the Photographic Society, we went off looking for pictures together for the monthly competitions. Often, we would go to the remote parts of Antrim, to places I knew through visiting with my father. One humid summer day, we found ourselves outside the churchyard at the foot of my father’s glen. It was Alan who insisted we look for the gravestone my father used to see from his schoolroom window. And it was Alan who found it. He looked at it for a long time, took some pictures, and then asked me if I would take him to see the site of the old cottage where my father had been born.
At the time, I thought it a strange thing for him to ask, though I knew he liked my father and always listened carefully to his stories on the rare occasions when they met. We drove up the valley, parked on the road, walked down the rough track that led to what once was McTaggart’s farm and worked our way cautiously along the hillside, for the path was so rarely used now, it had almost disappeared.
When we finally reached the fragment of gable still standing amid the tumbled walls and the invading bracken and heather, we became so absorbed in the view that we didn’t notice the darkening sky behind us. As the first drops of rain splashed down, we dived under the lee of the gable and let the squall whip over us. We emerged, dishevelled but dry, continued our explorations and then got thoroughly soaked by a second downpour as we climbed back up the track to the road.
There had been so many happy times. I sat twisting my engagement ring round and round on my finger and asked myself whatever had happened at the end of that year to change everything. Alan had got his doctorate and the offer of a very good job in Cheshire. Val and Bob got engaged on her birthday in August and we had a marvellous celebration with them, and then, before Alan left in September, we had a whole series of splendid expeditions together.
In October I joined the Dramatic Society and that was where I met Colin six months later when he was drafted in to help with a difficult set and stayed on to help with the production. I’d seen Alan when he came home to visit Val and he came over specially the weekend of the Photographic Society’s outing. But after that September, I realised, we had not gone out together again. Until this moment, I had never asked myself why that should have been so.
‘Sorry about that, Jenny. Val needed some candle ends paring.’
‘For her romantic gloom?’ I asked matter-of-factly, as I pushed away the thoughts that had been crowding in upon me.
“‘The last performance on any stage,” was what she said this afternoon when we did the balloons.’ He handed me my sherry and sat down.
‘So you’ve come home, Alan. For good?’
‘For good or ill. Which remains to be seen. I’m certainly committed to this new project for a year or two. It’ll take at least that long to get it off the ground.’
‘And after?’
He opened his free hand and looked at me very directly. ‘Who knows? Can we predict who we’re going to be in two or three years’ time, never mind the circumstances we’ll find ourselves in?’ he said quietly.
I nodded. ‘You’ve always said things like that, Alan, and I’ve been reluctant to admit that we can change so fast. Perhaps I’ve known too many people who never seem to change. Too many who know just who they’ll be in three years’ time. Or thirty. And where. And how wonderfully it’ll all work out.’ I stared at the faces beyond the glass panels and twisted my sherry glass in my hand.
‘Jenny?’ he said softly.
I glanced towards him. He was looking at me intently, on his face a look of gentleness I could not bear. It was a look I had seen before and had somehow forgotten. Alan had looked at me just this way more than once in that late summer before he went off to Cheshire.
‘I was thinking of a nice set of prints,’ I said hastily. ‘For the annual exhibition. “Life on the way to the top” by Jennifer Erwin, Honorary Member. What d’you think?’ I waved a hand at the screen dividing us from the lounge and was relieved when he turned away. Each panel framed the sort of image we’d once have entered as a ‘candid’. He picked up my cue instantly.
‘Mmm, I see what you mean. How would you light it?’
‘Oh, available. On really fast film,’ I said firmly. ‘Those faces need big grainy prints. It would pull out the haze of smoke to stand for the haze they’re creating. I’d soften the focus too, blur the shapes a bit. Just like they do.’
He nodded and waited.
‘Alan, they don’t talk to each other. They don’t look at each other. They don’t connect.’ I heard the bitterness in my voice, but I went on. ‘Is it me? Or is it them? What’s happened to all those people I used to know and like?’
I saw him hesitate, but once he began, he was simple and direct.
‘I think you’ve changed, Jenny. Changed very fast. But so have they. And you’ve not taken the same path.’
I glanced up at him anxiously, afraid of what was coming next. Yet I was even more afraid that he would let me down and evade my question.
‘Most of the men in that room are living out a fantasy of some kind,’ he began. ‘Successful businessman. Jolly good chap. Real live wire. They don’t think about it. They just go through the appropriate actions. Very labour-saving device. Simplifies life enormously. Eliminates effort and confusion and guarantees a sense of superiority over anyone who decides not to do likewise.’
‘And the women, Alan. What about the women? What do they do while their husbands are acting out their fantasies?’
‘That depends. Most of the ones I can see from here have fantasies of their own.’
‘Such as?’
‘Capable wife. Caring mother. Dutiful daughter.’
‘And what happens if the wife hasn’t got a fantasy of her own? If, for example, she were one of those unfortunates who want to do differently, to find out who they really are.’ I knew he was looking at me, but I kept my eyes firmly on the pale liquid in my glass.
‘She has a number of options,’ he began. ‘Do you remember me telling you about Iona Patterson? No, you probably don’t. It must have been the Christmas before last.’
‘Oh yes I do,’ I replied quickly. ‘She was your boss’s wife, the one who painted that splendid watercolour you bought Val for her birthday.’
‘Right. Well, I asked Iona your question once. We were at a firm’s dinner and she’d said some of the things you’ve been saying. She was very honest. Drink, bridge or sex, she said, were the options. Most of the women she knew had taken up one, or two, or all three. But in her case, it didn’t work. She’s allergic to alcohol, bored by cards, and still in love with Jamie. Hence the painting.’
‘Hardly a substitute for a real relationship.’
‘Depends what you mean by a “real” relationship, Jenny.’
I could see the point he was making, but I doubted if it offered me a solution. ‘So presumably, as long as both parties play the rules of the game, all is sweetness and light,’ I said without enthusiasm.
‘Correct. Problems only arise if one party refuses to go on playing. Like my mother did.’
I looked up quickly. Alan had never mentioned his mother before, except in relation to Valerie.
‘Alan, was it because of your parents that you’ve been so hostile to marriage? You’ve always been so cynical about falling in love. I remember you saying most men gave more thought to choosing a car than choosing a wife.’
‘That remark couldn’t have made me very popular.’
‘No, it didn’t. Nor did the comments you made, my last year, about all the pairing off that went on. Most of our crowd got engaged or married that year. You didn’t think those marriages would last, did you?’
I saw his eyes flicker over the group nearest the lounge door. A burly figure broke away and dashed up the stairs behind us. The bathroom door banged shut but did not disguise the sounds of someone being violently sick. Only moments later, heavy footsteps re-echoed on the stairs and Alwyn McPherson elbowed his way back into the crowd as if nothing whatever had happened.
‘It seemed to me the people involved hardly knew each other. As real people, that is. It looked just like a Paul Jones – you married the girl opposite when the music stopped.’
‘Has it ever struck you, Alan, that the Paul Jones doesn’t stop with the marriage?’
‘Go on,’ he said quietly.
But now I had seen it, I felt too tired to bother. It was all so obvious. Quite pointless to talk about it or analyse it. Over and done with. Only the harm left to face up to.
‘Go on, Jenny,’ he insisted. ‘What happens then?’
‘Well, as you say, you marry when the music stops,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘But, if you’re a woman, the Paul Jones goes on. And on. The next time it stops, you’re opposite velvet lounge curtains and a holiday in Spain. The next time, the new car and the washing machine. And the time after that, the second car and the first baby. But if you miss your cue and you’re not in the right place at the right time, you start to think about the whole preposterous business. That’s if you can hear yourself think with everyone telling you at the top of their voice where you’ve gone wrong and how you get back into the dance before it’s too late.’
I paused. The strain of talking over the din from the lounge was making my voice crack, or so I told myself. I sipped my sherry, cleared my throat and tried again.
‘You know, men deciding on marriage and women deciding on children comes to much the same thing in the end. Most of the women I know give more thought to choosing a new dress than having another baby. That’s why Val has had such a wretched time. She refused to play the game.’
I stopped abruptly, aware of the build-up behind my words. Waves of anger were flooding over me. Alan could cope with whatever I threw at him, but whether I could was a different matter.
‘Jenny dear! Sorry to butt in.’
I got one look at Bob’s face as he bent to kiss me. He looked hot and agitated.
‘Is anything wrong, Bob?’
‘No, but I need reinforcements. Val’s had to go down to the summerhouse. The smell of the pastry was making her sick. Would you come and direct operations if Alan and I fetch and carry for you? Val says we need to go ahead right away or the savories will spoil.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said jumping to my feet. ‘But is Val all right?’
‘Yes, truly. She was just fed up she couldn’t keep going. She says she’ll be back the moment the smell’s gone,’ he replied, as we trooped along the hall to the kitchen.
Val’s supper was certainly going to be memorable. She had made all the food herself, including the fresh cream gateaux I found when I opened the fridge. The oven was full of sausage rolls and vol-au-vents, and there were dishes of colourful bits and pieces on sticks and tiny sandwiches cut in interesting shapes. The only problem was where to put anything. The work surfaces were covered with bottles and clean glasses and the draining boards were covered with dirty ones. There wasn’t time to wash up, for the savories were indeed ready. I could see why the smell had got to Val. The state my stomach was in, it was getting to me as well.
But things got better as Bob and Alan carried stuff through to the lounge. The smell in the kitchen got less and the noise from next door diminished magically.
‘Jenny, could you manage for a few minutes if Alan and I go and open another keg of beer?’
I shut the oven door with my foot and looked at Bob over my shoulder. ‘Fine. This is the last trayful. I’ll take them through myself. What about the coffee?’
Alan plugged in the percolator and switched it on. ‘We’ll be back before that’s through,’ he said reassuringly as he followed Bob out to the garage.
I perched the hot tray on the edge of the sink so I could loosen the golden triangles with an egg slice. I looked for something to put them on but there wasn’t a plate in sight, so I picked up the tray again and carried it in as it was.
Neville was leaning against the doorpost, munching devotedly, his broad back blocking the entrance.
‘Neville,’ I said quietly. He didn’t hear me. He was looking across the room at Karen, where she sat, still surrounded by the same group of women. On her lap she held a well-filled plate of sandwiches and savories. Alwyn McPherson was leaning towards her, a dish of cocktail sausages in his hand.
‘Oh no, Alwyn, I shouldn’t,’ she protested coyly. ‘I really can’t have any more little sausages. They’re frightfully fattening.’
‘Oh, c’mon Karen, treat yourself. You can work it off later. A skinny woman’s no use. Give Neville something to hold on to.’
Karen’s lips tightened as she stretched out her hand and took another sausage.
‘C’mon, Karen. Bloody hell, what’s the use of one? C’mon.’ Alwyn’s voice was thick and slurred. As he leaned further forward, the sausages skidded towards her outstretched hand.
‘It’s all right, Karen,’ Alison Craig put in. ‘It’s only carbohydrate that matters. As long as it’s protein, you can absolutely stuff yourself.’
Karen shrugged. ‘That’s fine then.’ Her podgy fingers tightened round a handful of sticks, transferred them to her plate, and began to pop them whole into her prim little mouth.
‘C’mon Alison, here y’ar, girl, have some bloody sausages. Build you up into a big, strong wench. Great for the figure. Don’t tell me Jim doesn’t fancy a nice round pair. Thassright, isn’t it, Jim?’
Alison giggled and helped herself. She was already eyeing a lemon meringue which was disappearing fast as the plate passed from hand to hand across the room. ‘You can’t be careful all the time,’ she moaned, as she filled her plate. ‘You just can’t. Why, I eat practically nothing and I still put on weight. So what’s the point?’
I tightened my grip on the hot tray and wondered how I was going to get it safely across the room to the empty plates on the sideboard.
‘Neville,’ I began, ‘could you walk in front of me? This tray’s very hot.’
Neville jumped and turned round so quickly he nearly knocked it out of my hands.
‘Jenny! Here, let me take—’
‘Neville, it’s—’
‘Oooww . . .’
All conversation stopped as Neville licked his burnt fingers.
‘You being raped then, Neville?’
‘Whassat? Who’s being raped?’ Alwyn turned round and made his way unsteadily towards us. ‘I say, I say, and where have you been all evening, Jenny McKinstry? C’mon then. I saw you out there with Thompson.’
I moved briskly into the space left by Neville and slipped past Alwyn to the sideboard, ignoring him as best I could.
‘Could I have those empty plates, please, Jim?’
‘Anything for you, Jenny,’ he said agreeably as he passed them along.
I started to unload the savories. Conversation had stopped and showed no signs of starting again. I could feel their eyes upon me and it was all I could do to keep my hands from shaking as I slid the last golden triangle on to a plate. I took up my empty tray, turned, and found Alwyn blocking my path.
‘Whassis then, Jenny? Not talkin’ to me tonight? Zat it?’ He slid his arm round my waist and pulled me towards him. I could smell the whisky on his breath and his body reeked of sweat. He felt hot and damp against my bare shoulders.
An overpowering sense of claustrophobia swept over me. Silent figures surrounded me, munching, a vol-au-vent at a mouthful. A sandwich at a bite. Watching me. Waiting to be entertained. Even by a man who’d had far too much to drink making an absolute fool of himself.
‘Where’s McKinstry tonight, then?’
For God’s sake humour him, Jenny. Keep it light, I said to myself as I felt his grip tighten on me.
‘Off to the big city, Alwyn.’
‘Ah-ha. So thass it. While the cat’s away . . .’ He slid his hand up from my waist till his thumb pressed into my breast. I gripped my tray and tried to press his hand away without making it too obvious to the watchers.
But he wouldn’t move his hand or let me go.
‘We all know ‘bout London, Jenny. McKinstry’s not sittin’ in tonight, izzy? A fine upstandin’ lad like Colin, he’ll be living it up,’ he went on, breathing in my face. ‘UP,’ he repeated, hiccupping. ‘So what about you ‘n’ me havin’ the lass dance? I’ll see you gets ’ome all right.’
‘Alwyn, you’re standing between me and another pot of coffee. And some people’s cups are empty,’ I said, making a supreme effort to sound easy.
But Alwyn was past talking to. The needle had stuck in the groove and on he went. ‘Oh, a pot of coffee, is it? Well, thass a new name for it. Jim, d’ye hear? She calls it apotocoffee.’
Jim sniggered. Beyond the solid obstacle of Alwyn’s large frame, I caught a glimpse of Neville. He was looking very uncomfortable.
‘C’mon Jenny, wass Thompson got that I haven’t got? What d’ye want to sit out there for talkin’ to him all evenin’? He’s not one of our crowd. Oh, we saw you, didden we, Jim? We not fancy enough for you these days? C’mon, Jenny, less go an’ ’ave a danse.’
‘Sorry, Alwyn, I’m busy. Let me past, please.’ I couldn’t keep the thin edge out of my tone. I was getting desperate. ‘Please, Alwyn,’ I repeated, more sharply. I pressed the tray onto his hand as hard as I could. He belched and released me.
‘She doessn’ fancy me,’ he announced to the whole room, waving his tankard in the air. ‘Well, thass all right. Thass juss all right. You go off with nice boy Thompson. He’ll spin you a fine yarn. Don’ know who your frenss are, Jenny,’ he called after me as I left the lounge as swiftly as I decently could.
I stumbled down the corridor, threw open the kitchen door and banged it shut behind me. I leaned against it, shivering violently, wincing in the brilliant fluorescent light. For a moment I thought I was going to be violently sick.
‘Jenny, what on earth’s the matter?’ Alan put down the percolator, dragged out a stool from under the work surface and sat me down. I leaned back against the wall, my eyes closed, tears streaming down my cheeks. ‘What’s wrong, Jenny? Tell me what I can do. Shall I fetch Val?’
I shook my head. ‘Alan, for God’s sake get me away from here. Now, this minute. If you don’t, I won’t be responsible for what I do.’
‘What coat were you wearing?’
‘The black cloak.’
‘I’ll get it and tell Bob we’re going. I won’t be a moment.’ He ran the water till it was cold and filled a glass. ‘Here, that might help.’
I drank it gratefully. I looked at the glass, turning it in my hand. A pity it was one of Val’s best. I couldn’t bear to smash anything that was precious to her. Besides, if I smashed it, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop there, and at this moment the kitchen was just full of glass.