‘LOVE IN THE Afternoon,’ Jemima says later. ‘Wasn’t that the name of a book? Or, in this case it should be Love in the Early Evening.’
Ben, propped on one arm, looks down at her. ‘And is it love?’ he asks.
Immediately her smile fades; just for a moment she looks distressed, and he curses his clumsiness and rolls away from her warm, ample, generous body to sit on the edge of her bed. Nevertheless the question hangs between them.
Jemima shifts herself up on the pillows. ‘Leurve,’ she says, drawling out the word, trying to make a joke of it. ‘How do you define it?’
He doesn’t look at her as he hauls his shirt on and she puts a hand out and touches him lightly on the shoulder as if to reassure him.
‘What are we doing, Mimes?’ he asks, still with his back to her. ‘What happens next?’
‘Well, according to my personal experience,’ her voice is still jokey, ‘you tell me that you’ve got a wife or a girlfriend stashed away somewhere that you’ve discovered you can’t manage without and suddenly it’s “so long, and thanks for all the fish”. You tell me, Benj. What happens next?’
‘I don’t know.’ He stands up, pulling on the rest of his clothes. He doesn’t know how to say, ‘I do love you but I’m not in love with you.’
‘What you’re saying,’ she suggests, ‘is that it’s tricky pretending to Evie and Claude that we’re still just good mates, especially when we know that they’ve probably guessed exactly what’s happening, and sooner or later we’ve got to go public. Or, on the other hand, we go back to being just good mates.’
‘And could we do that?’
There is a silence and when he looks at her he is shocked by her expression. She looks as if he’s hit her; wounded her in some way. His heart is wrenched with pain and remorse but he can’t think of any way to take back the words or disguise their implicit meaning. Even as his mind tramples around in the debris of well-meaning phrases, she saves him.
‘You’re such a puritan, Benj,’ she says lightly. ‘Can’t we just be having a good time?’
‘I’m certainly having that,’ he says warmly – almost too enthusiastically – trying to repair the earlier damage. ‘It’s just …’
Jemima moves quickly, swinging her legs out of bed, talking about having a shower, forestalling any other tactless remark he might make, trying to draw them back from the edge of the precipice. He finishes dressing and goes downstairs where Otto greets him enthusiastically.
Ben crouches to speak to him, stroking his head, pulling his ears. He tries to convince himself that these few weeks have been like a sudden gift from the gods, an unexpected bonus, and he knows that Jemima has been happy to receive the gift and share it with him. Sex with Jemima is fun, light-hearted and very good. So why these fits of conscience, this requirement to look into the future?
He tries to imagine how he and Jemima might go forward asking nothing more than this, but he suspects that it can’t happen without putting their relationship on a more formal footing. It’s already becoming embarrassing pretending to Evie and Claude that nothing has changed; they’re not stupid. And surely this very informal arrangement must undermine Jemima’s relationship with them? Her old status as a close family friend is being damaged: the need for secrecy is corroding it. Perhaps he is a puritan but he’s beginning to feel that he must acknowledge her as something more than his lover; beginning to feel they can never go back to that innocent friendship they once had. He tries to picture himself and Jemima coming down together for breakfast, casually facing Evie and Claude over the porridge and orange juice, and his heart quails; it is beyond imagining. And then there is Laura. How would he introduce Jemima to Laura? How would that work? And what about Charlie?
Ben winces, gives Otto a final pat and stands up. He tries to persuade himself that Charlie has made his choice and his choice is his wife and children and his friends. He can’t have it both ways. Charlie walked away without even saying a proper goodbye to Jemima, leaving her unhappy and alone, and he, Ben, has been trying to comfort her.
So why does he feel so guilty about Charlie? So dissatisfied with himself? He thinks of their shared past and the affection they feel for each other; how Charlie has helped him financially from time to time. He remembers regatta and Charlie saying, ‘I think I just fell in love, Benj.’ Would he really be able to look Charlie in the eye and tell him that he and Jemima are lovers, and feel no twinge of guilt?
Ben hears the shower-room door open; he straightens up, takes a deep breath and prepares to be cheerful.
‘So there we have it,’ Jemima says to Otto, watching Benj drive away, her hand raised in farewell. ‘I think that’s what we might call the coup de grâce. Rather appropriate that it was actually Death in the Afternoon not Love. I think I’ve just finally blown it, Otto.’
It is beginning to rain and they go back inside. Suddenly she feels incredibly lonely; rootless. Yet she should be grateful that it’s over. Of course she’s grown used to being part of the family at the Merchant’s House; of course she wanted to keep them all together, but her affair with Benj has put that very thing she longed for out of court and it’s no good pretending any different. The dynamic has changed irrevocably. She isn’t so easy and open with Evie or Claude, and it’s much more difficult to be with Benj in their company – and impossible, now, to think of them all together with Charlie, as they were at regatta. She instinctively closes her eyes against the image of it. Now she can only imagine her and Charlie together away from his family, as they were when they first met on the Embankment, and the second time when he gave her the glass. Her embarrassment at the prospect of being with Charlie and Benj, and Claude and Evie, indicates just how necessary it is to step back: to finish the affair.
Nevertheless it is still humiliating when she remembers how Benj asked the question so quickly, almost eagerly: ‘And could we do that?’ as if he regretted even such a brief sharing of love. Going back, however, is out of the question, just as it’s also impossible for her to imagine she and Benj living together, either here or in the Merchant’s House. Especially not in the Merchant’s House.
Jemima shakes her head impatiently at her own inconsistency. She knows that neither of them is ready to commit to a steady relationship. Benj’s told her on numerous occasions how much he is enjoying his freedom; she knows that she is in love with Charlie. At the same time she’s unreasonably hurt at how quickly Benj began to be uncomfortable within their new relationship that brought her physical comfort and relief.
She wonders just how guilty he’s feeling about Charlie – but suddenly she can’t bear to think about Charlie. She doesn’t want to admit how often, when she holds Benj in her arms, she makes believe that he is Charlie; how, once Benj has gone, she looks at her little piece of glass and feels as if her heart is just as brittle and vulnerable: simplicity, strength, freedom. Suddenly she fears that she’s in danger of losing these very qualities that Charlie recognized and valued in her.
Her instinct is right: it’s time to move on.