CLAUDE WATCHES THEM go. He sees what, at a casual glance, seems to be a perfectly normal-looking little family enjoying regatta, but he knows that this is not the case. He cannot imagine what the woman and the little girl he and Evie saw at Torcross the day before yesterday are doing with Charlie and he tries, without success, to conjure up various scenarios in which they might have met and become so friendly.
When he first saw them at the coffee stall he was struck by a sense of such intimacy between them that he assumed it was Ben. It’s quite possible that Ben and Jemima have met somewhere locally and been attracted to each other. As soon as he realized that it was Charlie, Claude was filled with misgiving: it’s not Charlie’s style to chat up pretty women and drink coffee at a stall with them. And what if Ange should arrive on the scene?
Even as he thinks this, he sees her approaching along the Embankment. Ange never strolls or saunters: she walks as if there is a train to catch; short quick steps, head slightly jutting forward. In a few moments she will be passing the stall. Claude hurries towards them. Perhaps it is all quite innocent but, just in case, he will join the little party; reacquaint himself with Jemima, muddy the waters somehow to make it all seem quite natural. But, even as he approaches, Maisie seizes Charlie’s hand and the three of them disappear into the crowd of holidaymakers.
Quickly Claude steps behind a booth as Ange draws level and stomps by, shopping bag over her shoulder, intent on her mission. He watches her go, relieved that she didn’t see Charlie. Claude is still feeling cross with her for nearly disrupting the mood of last night’s little party.
‘What a tiresome woman she can be,’ he said to Evie when the three of them had gone. ‘You really spiked her guns, though. You could see her brain working overtime, wondering if you were really serious. Poor old Charlie.’
‘She’s a very good wife and mother,’ Evie answered thoughtfully. ‘Very focused on what the family needs.’
He very nearly said that it was like Marianne and TDF all over again.
‘Women are so damned sensible,’ TDF said to him once in the pub. ‘They can never let go just for a moment and be silly. They’re so afraid they might lose control. I suppose they get all the stress out of their systems with their girlfriends and we’re supposed to be doing it over this pint we’re having, Claude. But wouldn’t it be good just to actually have some fun with one’s wife? Let off steam and just be silly and happy together for a few hours.’
It was quite a speech for TDF, who was such a placid fellow. Claude was surprised and, oddly, rather touched by TDF’s intensity. His reaction was to try to make him laugh.
‘You mean like that song from My Fair Lady? “Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?”’ He began to sing it, being first Rex Harrison and then Wilfrid Hyde-White. Jilly loved musicals – she’d been brought up on them, and knew so many songs by heart – and this was one of her favourites. He sang it to TDF – quietly but guying it up, acting it out – until they were both laughing so much he couldn’t sing any more and the other people in the bar were laughing with them and joining in.
It was not long afterwards, Claude remembers, that TDF met Evie. They certainly had fun together; it wasn’t so much a steamy passionate affair as simply two people of like minds who enjoyed the other’s company.
Now, standing on the Embankment, with the throng of happy visitors enjoying regatta sweeping around him, Claude anxiously wonders if history might be about to repeat itself and if he should mention it to Evie. On reflection he decides not to. She was very quiet after supper, thinking about TDF.
‘You can’t imagine how much I miss him,’ she said.
‘Oh, I can,’ he answered. ‘I miss him too. He could always make me laugh, diffuse tension, give me a sense of perspective.’
‘And there was you, too, Claude,’ she said. ‘I was so lucky. Thank God for you.’
She put an arm round his shoulders and hugged him, and he felt foolish and emotional and didn’t know how to react.
‘Well,’ he said lightly, ‘I can’t think of a better moment to ask a huge favour. Well, two, actually.’
She looked at him, amused, eyebrows raised. ‘Go on then.’
‘First one. The family are going skiing for Christmas. I could go but I don’t particularly want to, and they don’t really want me tagging along, so I was wondering …’
‘If you could come here?’ Evie’s face was bright with pleasure. ‘But that would be wonderful, Claude. I’d love it. It’s usually such a dreary time for me on my own but with you here and Ben across the road it’ll be worth making plans for.’
He took courage from her delight to make his second request.
‘There’s more.’
She laughed at his expression. ‘Whatever can it be?’
‘It’s a really huge ask, this one.’
‘Spit it out.’
‘They’ve decided the annexe needs extending. They want to build a room above it to give them more space so it means I have to move out for a few weeks. I can go into the house with them in the little spare room but, to be honest, I can see it’ll be a big upheaval for everyone. I’ve been screwing up my courage to ask if I could come to stay.’
‘You daft old bugger,’ she said affectionately. ‘Of course you can come. You know I’d love it.’
‘I was thinking that if you got tired of me I could go over and stay with Ben. Get out of your hair.’
She put both arms round him then, holding him tightly.
‘Shut up. You’re staying with me. That’s settled.’
They stood together for a moment, sharing the affection and security of their long friendship, and then drew apart, smiling at each other.
‘So when do you want to come?’
‘It sounds as if it might be the middle of October,’ he answered. ‘Once I get back I’ll be able to give you a date. Thanks, Evie.’
Now, he feels an almost overwhelming desire to go back and tell her about Charlie but he can’t decide whether it is disloyal to drop Charlie in it. After all, what was he actually doing? Simply having a cup of coffee at a stall and chatting to a woman isn’t a crime. And the little girl was with them: it was hardly a secret assignation.
Nevertheless, he instinctively knows that there is more to it than that. He remembers the way they stood, looked at each other, as if they were enclosed in a shiny bubble of their own devising: secret and separate and inviolable. Even the child accepted it; she’d taken Charlie’s hand so naturally, as if he belonged to them. And then, as if protected by a magic cloak in a fairy story, they disappeared just as Ange came stomping by.
As he stands watching a skiff flying over the water he wonders where they are now; whether they might blunder into Ange on her way back from the shops. He feels an odd instinct to protect them though he knows he shouldn’t be encouraging them. His problem is that he doesn’t like Ange any more than he liked Marianne. He liked seeing TDF off the hook, relaxing and having fun, rather than being harried and controlled and treated rather like a wayward schoolboy. TDF grafted, he loved his son, was a great host – but there was so little real joy and, once Charlie began boarding school, very little fun.
‘Laughter’s addictive, Claude,’ TDF once said. ‘Once you start laughing you just want more of it.’
Claude wonders how he will react when he next meets Charlie. Will he be able to pretend that he hasn’t seen Charlie and Jemima together? He feels he’s witnessed something intensely private – which is ridiculous in the circumstances. Perhaps he should follow them and casually bump into them so as to see Charlie’s reaction. Even as Claude considers it, Charlie emerges from the Royal Avenue Gardens and wanders across the road, hands in pockets. Claude hurries towards him and steps in front of him.
‘Hi, Claude,’ Charlie says.
Claude stares curiously at him. Charlie’s eyes are bright, wide and amazed, as if he has just seen something infinitely precious. He smiles at Claude, evidently trying to contain some strong emotion, only just preventing himself from bursting into joyful laughter.
‘Charlie.’ Claude puts a hand on the younger man’s arm. How strong and warm and vital it feels, tensed beneath the thin cotton of his shirt. ‘I see you’ve made some new friends.’ He speaks out with reluctance yet he is unable to pretend he doesn’t know.
Charlie’s eyes focus on him, his eyebrows rise – and he laughs. No guilt here, then; no awkwardness.
‘Yes,’ he agrees, still laughing, inviting Claude to share his happiness. ‘What an amazing pair. Do you know them?’
Claude shakes his head. ‘Only met them once, on Torcross Line, eating ice cream.’
‘Yes, Jemima said that’s where she lives. She knows Benj.’
‘Does she?’
‘Mmm. Not very well. She mistook me for him.’
‘How extraordinary.’
Charlie shrugs. ‘It’s happened to me and Benj before but not quite like this. Never like this. Look,’ he lays his hand briefly on the older man’s shoulder, ‘I must get back. See you later, Claude.’
Claude watches him go, smiles and raises his hand. Yet, as he turns away and gazes across the river to the guardship, with its attendants of much smaller craft, he knows that things will never be quite the same again.