It was weeks since Liz had last seen Reginald for that oddly unsatisfactory evening together, she in her black dress and Italian tan, distracted by worry about Lissy; far too many weeks since he had dropped her off with hardly a kiss and no struggle at all. Since then, silence. Liz knew, and kept reminding herself, that a man’s sense of time is quite different from that of a woman. Men can let months go by and then ring as though they had spoken to you yesterday, while women count the days and even the hours. Liz was a sophisticate in the battle of the sexes and thought she understood how the male mind worked. All the same, by the time Reginald finally telephoned, she was frantic.
Her daughter had stayed on for several days, enjoying the pampering and, in the end, graciously accepting the offer of some garments from the shop. The short, flared dresses that were in fashion that summer made ideal pregnancy-wear. Alicia surveyed her reflection and saw that she looked delicious. Liz began to think she might find herself landed with her daughter for the entire pregnancy, and wondered disloyally if this would capsize her own plans – for she did not care to be seen by Reggie in the role of prospective grandmother.
Already, this unborn baby, this foetus, was binding mother and daughter close. Lissy solemnly promised to attend the ante-natal clinic regularly, and grudgingly agreed to think about informing the baby’s father. Though she didn’t see why, she said, when her brother, Hugo, would make a perfectly good father-figure, if the poor bloody infant had to have a man in its life. Then she caught Liz’s eye and acknowledged that she was being absurd, and the two of them laughed together conspiratorially: lone women, same predicament. Eventually Lissy, keen to show off her new look to her friends in London, borrowed another twenty pounds from her mother and caught the train back. Peace had been made between them.
Liz returned to worrying about Reggie. Had she said or done something wrong that last Thursday evening they had spent together? She scoured her memory but could recall only that he had talked about his wartime exploits and she – surely? – had found herself rather impressed. Had he, then, met another woman? It would not be difficult. Poor old Reggie was a walking widower in need of a wife: it stood out a mile. Maybe that was the problem – her refusal to go to bed with him. Perhaps he had concluded that she was prudish or frigid. Next time I will, Liz promised herself. I’ve made him wait long enough, poor old heffalump, and if I don’t, someone else will.
Let’s face it, between Lissy and the infernal bank manager, I need a cash injection fast. Whittington has been breathing down my neck like a dragon, panicking me with his talk of bankruptcy and liquidation. ‘Sell the shop, Mrs Franks.’ She recalled his nasal, wheedling voice. ‘Sell the shop and realize your assets while you can. Pay off your creditors and take a steady, salaried job. With your experience, you could easily get a post in the – what do they call it? – women’s wear section of a London department store. Money coming in regularly, you’d know where you stood. It’s the recession, Mrs Franks. It’s biting very hard.’ ‘I will not be a shop assistant!’ Liz had said. ‘I had imagined,’ he said tartly, ‘that was rather what you were now? Correct me if I’m wrong.’ ‘You’re wrong,’ she had retorted. ‘Be that as it may …’ His voice droned on … Finally, he said, ‘It’s up to you, Mrs Franks: the choice is yours. The bank will extend your business loan for another ninety days. After that we shall either need to see regular reducing payments, or we shall have to call in the loan. I’ll confirm that in writing.’
Liz’s thoughts returned to Reginald. What other solution is there? And besides, he’s not too bad. At times I think he doesn’t just fancy me, he actually loves me. God knows, that’d be nice. I love to be loved. Could I ever love him? He’s got beautiful manners. He’s overweight, yes, but I can take him in hand, get him to lose a stone or two. At least he isn’t physically repulsive. I can face going to bed with him. He doesn’t exactly drive me wild with desire, but that’s not the point. He doesn’t disgust me.
His house must run pretty smoothly: it’s always spotless, and he’s immaculately turned out. There’s that manservant – time I learned his name, might be a useful ally – and presumably a housekeeper as well. Probably a cleaner comes in. Gardener. Quite a large staff. Have my hands full looking after that lot. They won’t be too pleased to see me come along. Got used to having things their own way. Be like Mrs Danvers in Rebecca all over again, I dare say. Steady on, Liz … He hasn’t even rung yet.
And then he did. She was watching the news. John McCarthy’s release was rumoured to be imminent and she didn’t want to miss the sight of his face as he emerged after years in some cellar, blinking and grinning at freedom, to hug that brave, persistent girl who’d engineered it all – but it was still just speculation from various so-called Middle East experts. All the same, they had made her forget her own panic, so that when the telephone rang she was genuinely distracted.
‘Yes?’ she answered, abruptly, preoccupied; and then, with a glad cry that she could not disguise, ‘Reggie!’
Her voice was so womanly, so vibrant with welcome, that he could almost have said there and then, ‘Marry me, Liz.’ And it might have been better if he had. But Reginald overruled this guileless impulse and said, ‘Ah! You’re there. Thought you might have been away on holiday again.’ (As though he’d seen her last week, instead of nearly two months ago!) ‘All well with you?’
Instantly on guard, Liz answered, ‘Fine. Could certainly do with a break.’ (Just in case he was offering her a weekend in Venice.) ‘Still here for the time being. How have you been?’
‘Oh, not too bad, you know. Busy, pretty busy … Care to have dinner one evening? Long time no see.’
‘I should think dinner would be lovely,’ she said coolly. ‘Do you want to fix a date now?’
Now that the moment was approaching when they must consummate or abandon their relationship, they were shy and gruff, putting off the occasion as though trying to avert it. Everyone is modest before a first encounter. Even in darkness – though wishing to make love in the dark is taken as a sign of inhibition – people must eventually bare their bodies to one another and be naked as newborns, stripped of clothing and artifice. Now that the game, the chase, was soon to culminate in this trial of their secret needs and abilities, suddenly both would have liked to postpone it. As Reggie grew older, he found the chase more fun than the capture. Perhaps he always had. Perhaps the end was too closely associated with death. Perhaps that had always been his problem. But a date had to be set.
So he said, with a touch of irritation in his voice, ‘How are you placed for Saturday?’
‘This Saturday?’ asked Liz.
What’s she on about, thought Reggie, this Saturday? This week, next week, sometime, never? Games these women play. ‘Why not?’ he parried.
‘This Saturday would do as well as any. Had you anywhere special in mind?’
‘Care to come and eat here?’
Aha, she thought. I am to be paraded for the benefit of the housekeeper, the manservant, and God knows who else!
‘If you like,’ she said.
‘Splendid! Pick you up, what, about eight?’
‘Eight on Saturday will be lovely. Look forward to it.’
They both hung up, and both glanced at the time: Reggie at an elegant, slightly tarnished brass carriage clock on the mantelpiece; Liz at a black and white digital clock in a sleek modern shape on hers. It was not quite twenty past ten. Start the countdown, thought Reggie, and his heart raced quite alarmingly at the prospect. Steady on old chap, he told himself, still got four days to go.
I’d better book a facial, thought Liz, and have my roots done; and fit in two aerobics classes between now and Saturday. Just under four days to arrange it all.
‘You sure you’re going to be comfy?’ asked Roy, for what must have been the fifth time that day. June didn’t find it annoying. It was so long since anyone had looked after her, worried about her comfort, that Roy’s expressions of concern were a luxury.
‘It’s lovely, Dad,’ she said. ‘You’ve worked ever so hard. I hope you haven’t done yourself an injury lugging stuff about and scrubbing the floors. Don’t it all look nice, though?’
‘Didn’t have to do it all on my lonesome. Arthur came in from over the road to help with the heavy things and his missus took a whole lot of bits and bobs down to the church hall for the next bazaar. Molly Tucker, you don’t know her, she was an old friend of Gracie’s, Molly sorted out some of Grace’s and Vera’s and’ – had to be said, you couldn’t avoid it for ever – ‘Alan’s old clothes, and took the net curtains and your bedroom ones to the launderette and washed them. People have been good neighbours. Makes me sorry I’ve stayed away so long.’
‘Well, now you’re back,’ said June firmly.
‘Not for a few more days,’ Roy said. ‘You know how welcome you are here, but some people can make white look like black, they’ve got that sort of mind. Better I stay up at The Cedars till the boys get here. Then there can’t be no wagging tongues.’
‘Let them wag!’ said June, but she was not altogether sorry to have a few nights by herself. It would give her time to settle in, get used to the feel of the place, get some idea of whether she could ever belong here, amid the classy streets, posh shops and smooth white faces of Tunbridge Wells.
‘You be OK on your own?’ asked Roy, again not for the first time. ‘I ought to be off now, but I’ll be back round about ten o’clock tomorrow morning – in time for elevenses at the latest.’
June looked at him and thought, How did this little, kind, fussy man produce the V-shaped body, strong arms, wide shoulders and broad face of my Alan? Even when he got old, Alan would never have gone like this. Roy must always have had the furrowed, anxious face of a tiny furry creature, big eyes on the alert for predators, jug ears scanning every rustle. How did this frightened little man’s seed grow into the great oak of my husband? Yet Alan only looked big; he was fearful inside, always on the look-out for neglect and insult, afraid of inflicting pain, afraid of incurring it. Billy now, he takes after his Dad in looks, but he’s tougher; he’s got my Mum in his nature. Be good for them to live with their Grandad for a while. Too long since they had a man about the place. They’ll test him, see how much he’ll stand for. I must tell him not to weaken or give in to them. I wish he’d go. He looks ever so tired, and it makes me nervous, him hanging about. If I get on edge, I’ll have another go at my arms and that’d make for a rotten start.
‘What is it, Dad?’ she asked. ‘Something bugging you?’
‘You sure you’ll be OK without me? You will – you know – leave yourself alone …?’
Bloody hell, he can read my mind! Better watch out.
‘I’ll be OK, I swear it. Tell me again what you got for supper.’ It comforted them both, his recitation of what was in the fridge, what was in the freezer, and what was in the cool, freshly cleaned larder. The incantation of supplies was reassuring. The hunter was home from the hill. We shall not starve this week.
‘And there’s lentils and a knuckle of ham,’ he ended. ‘So when the boys get back, if we get a cooler day, you can make ham-and-pea soup, and even a meat loaf with the rests so little Joe can learn how to use the mincer, like his Dad loved to do.’
‘How’d you learn all that stuff?’ June asked. ‘Was it just from watching Mum?’
‘Used to be a cook in my young days, before I went on the milk.’
‘One day you can teach me some new recipes. Go on, off you go. Tell me next time.’
Neither was quite sure what form of parting was suitable at the end of a long day in which Roy had taken June under his roof, given her the bedroom and the very bed he had shared for over forty years with his wife – the bed in which, in all probability, Alan had been conceived. Roy feared an embrace, yet longed for physical contact, some firm touch to prove that his flesh was still solid, some momentary reminder of the scent of female softness. June wanted to know whether any echo of her dead man still clung to his father.
They’d had a dog when she was little, and after her own father had died – killed in a car accident, drunk – the dog had moped and slunk about for weeks. Eventually it seemed to forget, but two years later her uncle, her father’s brother, came to visit and the dog had gone mad with joy. What did it catch that humans could not? If she inhaled deeply enough, could she catch a trace of Alan on his father?
‘Don’t get up,’ said Roy.
‘No no, I’ll see you to the door,’ said June.
‘You’d best double-lock it from the inside. Do you want to test it?’
‘OK.’
He went outside and tried the handle. It wouldn’t budge, and, calling out a cheery ‘That’s it! You’re quite safe!’ he turned away and walked down the path, so that in the end they neither touched nor took any leave of one another at all.
For Roy the anti-climax was so sudden that his need for human contact, newly evoked, cried out for satisfaction. He crossed the road towards Arthur’s place, but the house was in darkness, with only the hall light shining to deter passing burglars. He knocked on the door all the same and waited, but there were no answering footsteps. He rejected the pub. He was too tired for that.
On the spur of the moment, he decided to drop in on Molly before going back to The Cedars. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock, still quite light, and he owed his thanks anyway for her help. So he turned right on John’s Road and set off along Woodbury Park. What would Grace have to say about the day’s events? he wondered. She’d surely think he had done the right thing. Thank God she had never known about Alan’s grey and bloody death! O for the touch of a vanish’d hand … But he could no longer summon up the sound of her voice that was still; he knew only that she had been his wife, that he had loved her, but now their home had been dismantled and she would no longer recognize the rooms in which she had lived and moved. The fact was, she no longer belonged there. The other night he had dreamed of finding her in the house, and, worried that the boys would be frightened by this apparent return from the dead, he had in his dream tried to hustle her away or conceal her. He had woken feeling guilty and ashamed. His own Grace, no longer welcome!
On Saturday Billy and Joe were due back from camp. June had arranged to go up to Balham, meet the Cubs’ bus, and bring them back with her on the train to Tunbridge Wells, after dropping in to say hello to Gloria. Roy spent the morning at Thomas Street preparing a meal so that when Junie got home she’d only to pop it in the oven. He checked that the boys’ beds were dry and aired, and nipped down the road to the newsagent to buy a comic for each of them, so they could read in bed. They’d be too excited to go to sleep straightaway, he thought, remembering the long-ago evenings when Vera and Alan used to read the Dandy and Beano in bed for hours by the dwindling light of dusk. Then he caught the bus back to The Cedars.
Going down to the kitchen to put a kettle on in case the Squadron Leader wanted a cup of something, he found a strange woman there, wearing a big white apron.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘Excuse me,’ said Roy. ‘I’m ever so sorry. I didn’t know you was here. I came down to make a cuppa for Sir. I’ll just put the kettle on. I won’t be in your way.’
‘He’s upstairs. Outside on the terrace, I think. I’m Michaela Simpson, by the way, Mick and Flick Catering. We’re doing him a special dinner for two. You’re going to be serving it, I dare say. He said he didn’t need us. I must have a quick word with you later on, about the saumon poelé.’
‘Beg your pardon?’
‘The fish course,’ she amended.
‘Righty-ho,’ said Roy. ‘I’ll be back in a tick. I’ll just go and see what he wants.’
Reggie was sitting on the terrace with his cigarettes, an ashtray and a tall drink beside him. It looked surprisingly non-alcoholic.
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘There you are at last. Beginning to wonder if I’d ever see hide or hair of you again.’
‘I need to have a word with you, sir,’ said Roy. ‘I thought you might care for a coffee?’
‘Mrs Mick down there mixes a bloody good Pimm’s,’ said Reggie. ‘Have a look at the jug. Pour me another, and see if there’s a drop left for yourself.’
‘Not for me, thanks all the same, sir,’ said Roy. ‘I wondered if I might have a word …?’
‘About tonight,’ said Reginald. ‘Haven’t forgotten, have you?’
‘You want me to serve dinner?’
‘That’s right. ETA latest, twenty-thirty; dinner should kick off about fifteen minutes after that. You can go after you’ve dished up the main course. Leave the pudding and cheese on the sideboard, clear away downstairs, and go home. I won’t be needing you in the morning. Please yourself what time you come in tomorrow, as long as it’s not too early.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Roy. He tried again. ‘Squadron Leader…?’
‘I said go ahead. Help yourself to some Pimm’s.’
Roy, seeing there was no other way to attract his attention, did so. He sipped the clear, bitter liquid. It was unexpectedly delicious.
‘It’s ever so nice, sir.’
‘I should say it is! Perfect summer drink! Even better than gin and It. Tell Mrs Mick downstairs to brew us up another jug, will you?’
‘You wouldn’t care for a coffee now, sir?’
‘I said, another jug, Southgate.’
Roy returned to the terrace ten minutes later having stiffened his resolve to the point where his mouth was dry and his heart was pounding. His hands shook as he poured a fresh Pimm’s into the Squadron Leader’s proffered glass.
‘I say, old chap, steady on.’
Roy sat down abruptly.
‘The thing is, sir, I keep trying to tell you and now it’s tonight. I won’t be sleeping here no more. My son died …’
‘I remember. Rotten business. Anything I can do, just let me know,’ said Reggie, drawing deeply on his cigarette and averting his eyes.
‘… and his wife couldn’t cope no more on her own and the boys was running wild and the Social poking their nose in, asking questions, so I’ve brought them all down here, to live with me. In my house,’ he added, as a look of horror flickered briefly across Reginald’s face. ‘Now I’m going to have to move back in there and look after them. She’s not been that well, June, that’s my daughter-in-law; it’s been a great trial to her, and the boys is getting older, twelve and ten they are now.’
‘You mean to tell me you’re going away?’ said Reginald. ‘Leaving?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Reginald drained his Pimm’s. Automatically, Roy refilled the glass. The Squadron Leader looked devastated. His colour was high, and his eyes protruded more than usual. The tiny red veins that branched like trees across his corneas appeared close to bursting. The veins on his forehead throbbed visibly, great pulsing purple ropes. Roy felt his own heart race in sympathy.
‘I could always come back and clean for you, sir,’ he added, although he hadn’t meant to. ‘For the time being, that is, until you find someone else. I could keep the kitchen and bathroom nice, that’s the main thing, and run a hoover downstairs twice a week, and if you took your shirts to the laundry – only until – for the time being …’
Reggie looked at Roy in dismay. He stubbed his cigarette out. Almost at once he lit another. Eventually he said, ‘Is this final? Suppose I offered to pay you a wage? Say we started at twenty’ – he amended it hastily – ‘no, thirty pounds a week?’
‘It’s ever so good of you, sir,’ Roy told him, ‘but it isn’t a matter of money. It never was. I come here to give you a bit of comfort and company, not for the wage. I’m not saying I shan’t be sorry to go sir …’
‘Well, then?’ said Reggie, clutching at a straw.
‘But I have to, on account of June and the boys. I’ve been happy here, sir, looking back, and I was right miserable when I arrived. It’s been like a kind of a marriage in a way, hasn’t it? You and me living together here these last, what is it, nine months must be, sort of both looking after each other. When I first come here, I was that cut up about my Grace I couldn’t hardly see through both eyes at once. All I done was think of her and feel sorry for myself. But you took me out of myself, made me see there was others besides. You done me a power of good, sir. Vicar was right. You’ve looked after me, in a manner of speaking, and I hope I’ve looked after you. We’ve been almost like a couple.’
This was too much for Reginald, who muttered querulously, ‘Hardly.’ He regarded Southgate as little more than a servant, and Roy had come to behave as though Reggie were his master. Reginald would have been greatly surprised had anyone told him they were equals, indeed friends; and not just because no money had passed between them. And yet they were equals, though only Roy had realized it.
‘Blood’s thicker than water, sir, and I have to put those boys first,’ Roy concluded, having at last said what he meant to say.
‘When were you thinking of leaving?’ asked Reginald.
‘Tonight. I thought I’d move my stuff out this afternoon, do my packing and that, leave the spare room nice and tidy for the next person. I’ll look in next week, make sure you’ve got everything. But I won’t be sleeping here no more. So don’t you worry about your dinner. I won’t be in your way. I’ll serve up and go.’ As a final placatory gesture he added, ‘Would you like me to wear anything special, sir? I could put on a white shirt and my black trousers, make it look smarter, formal, for the occasion?’
‘Thanks,’ said Reginald. ‘That’d be very suitable. And a plain dark tie. Black, in fact. That’ll be all for now, Southgate.’
Reginald arrived sharp at eight outside Liz’s Georgian doll’s house in Garden Street. He wasn’t feeling on top form. He’d had to park the big car a couple of hundred yards away. His head ached low down in the skull at the back, ached and thundered. Too many bloody Pimm’s, he thought. Taste so innocent you think there’s nothing to them, and then they deliver a kick like a mule. He cheered up at the sight of Liz. She was wearing some white thing, plain and simple, cut straight across her breasts and suspended from narrow straps, and tiny nonsensical gold sandals that teetered as she stepped forward to greet him. Something gold and chunky round her neck gleamed dully. Certainly got some decent jewellery, thought Reggie. Never marry for money, Nanny used to say; love where money is. Jolly good advice.
‘Darling!’ said Liz. ‘Reggie! Goodness, it seems a long time! I’ve missed you – bad boy.’
This was promising. Reggie felt the waist of his trousers strain, and relaxed.
‘Quick drink?’ asked Liz. ‘Glenmorangie?’ She smiled at him. ‘First drink we ever had together. Remember?’
‘You look very lovely,’ said Reggie. ‘Knock-out. No, I won’t come in. Plenty of Scotch back at base, and the cook will have my guts for garters if we’re late for dinner. Been cooking all day.’
‘Mmm,’ said Liz. ‘I can’t wait.’
She tottered along the pavement towards his waiting car and slid in to the seat with a flash of burnished leg. Reggie drove along Crescent Road and down Mount Pleasant, shutting his eyes at the usual spot, then past the cricket ground into Nevill Park. He parked the car, helped her out, and, as he walked up the steps towards the front door, it swung open.
‘Evening, sir,’ said Southgate. ‘Madam.’ He took the long drift of chiffon that Liz was holding and laid it reverently across the back of a chair in the hall. As Reginald ushered Liz towards the drawing-room, Roy Southgate said, ‘I’ve set the drinks out on the terrace, sir, seeing as it’s a warm evening. Would you like me to bring them inside?’
‘Liz?’ Reggie turned to her. ‘What do you think? Are you going to be chilly out there in that frock?’
‘The terrace would be heavenly. What a lovely idea. Thank you, Southgate.’ She favoured him with her Revlon-bright smile.
‘Oh!’ she gasped a moment later, in honest admiration. ‘Your garden is glorious!’
‘You should have seen it a few weeks ago,’ Reggie replied, and Liz laughed.
‘People always say that when you praise their garden!’
The evening started exactly according to plan. Southgate did his stuff and Mrs Mick came up trumps. The food was superb. Liz looked perfectly at home in his dining-room. Her shoulders, lips and necklace shone beguilingly. Reginald began to feel he had been over-pessimistic earlier in the day. Southgate’s leaving accelerated matters but didn’t really change anything. No reason to hang about. They were both adults, free and unencumbered.
Southgate cleared the plates quietly and efficiently, swept the table with a tiny dustpan and brush that he hadn’t seen since Mary’s day, and set out the pudding and cheese plates on the sideboard.
‘Will that be all, sir?’ he asked.
‘Very good, Southgate. Well done. Yes, you may go now.’
‘Delicious dinner,’ said Liz, to no one in particular.
‘Not mine, Madam,’ said Roy. ‘Mrs Simpson cooked.’
‘Well, tell her from me it was excellent,’ said Liz graciously.
‘That’s all, Southgate,’ said Reggie, hurriedly. ‘You may go now.’
‘Goodbye, sir,’ said Roy. ‘I’ll look in tomorrow. Glad you enjoyed your dinner, Madam.’
For an instant Liz frowned, but before she could ask, what does he mean, he’ll ‘look in’ tomorrow? Reggie took charge.
‘Right!’ he said decisively. ‘Now then! What do you fancy? Cheese first in the nasty French way, or pudding?’
‘Haven’t much choice, have I? Pudding would be lovely. Please.’
They had been talking, earlier, about their marriages. He described Mary: docile, unworldly, long-suffering, but with an unexpected talent for making money. ‘Sounds the very opposite of my husband!’ Liz had said, laughing. She told him briefly about David – impulsive, amoral, extravagant, but the sexiest man that she, at twenty-one, had ever seen. Reggie wanted to know about her children. She avoided telling him their ages. Hugo, she said, was still on his travels. Sort of Grand Tour, Reggie had offered. Yes, she had agreed (why confuse him with the facts?). He had urged her to bring Alicia down to meet him soon and Liz, thinking the sooner the better, had promised to do so.
They moved into a new phase, a sort of intimacy, a truthfulness. It was the end of games-playing, time for a mutually understood laying down of cards. Reggie lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly.
Liz felt emboldened to ask, ‘Why – you don’t have to answer – why did you never have children?’
‘Just one of those things,’ said Reginald, gruffly, swerving away. Male pride made him add, ‘Not that there was anything wrong with us. Not a matter of couldn’t.’
‘You must have wanted them, surely? A son to carry on the family name. A daughter. I thought all men wanted a daughter. A pretty girl to wind you round her little finger.’
‘Do they?’ asked Reggie. His colour, thought Liz, was dangerously high. His blood pressure must be appalling. She’d have him checked out.
‘Or was it your wife?’ she persisted.
‘No … no … Mary was very keen to have kids. That’s why we bought this big house in the first place.’
‘Forgive me, Reggie dear. Tell me to mind my own business if you like. It just seems, you know, odd. Unlikely.’
‘Another glass of wine?’ he asked. ‘Or would you rather have port with your cheese?’
Fluffed it, she thought. Clumsy ass. I’ve lost the moment.
‘Port, please,’ she said demurely. She sipped it in silence.
I haven’t talked about this, except a few times with Mary, for forty years, thought Reginald. People must have forgotten it ever happened. Nothing was said at Mary’s funeral. Vivian might remember, although why should he? Just a boy at the time. Wouldn’t have meant much to him. Changed my life. Changed my marriage. Changed everything.
Mary wouldn’t let me make love to her for a year afterwards and when finally she allowed me back in her bed, I couldn’t do it. We lived as a non-playing couple from then on. Might have looked pukka from the outside. Never can tell what happens inside a marriage. I dare say thousands are like us. Don’t tell me Chaggers still rogers his wife – or Harry, let alone Pongo and Betty. It’s a very English sort of marriage, isn’t it? All best behaviour and no action. From then on I could only do it with tarts. Never managed to get it up for a decent girl, not unless she acted like a whore. The surprise was the number of decent girls who liked it that way, too: who could only cope with sex as a dirty little secret. It had to be expensive and grubby and furtive for me and the bad boy. Guilty and ashamed, your Honour.
Liz was watching him, her eyes shadowy in the evening light. If I’m thinking of marrying this woman, she’ll have to know. I must tell her. Now. How do I begin? His heart thundered in his chest, beat after heavy beat resounding against his ribs.
‘’Fifty-one,’ said Reginald. ‘Nineteen-fifty-one was the year she died. Might as well tell you. Might as well come clean.’ He snorted and almost choked. Liz was alarmed. Glory be, she said to herself, what have I started?
‘She was three,’ Reginald began. ‘Her name was Cecily. We called her Tush, or Tushy, for some reason. She was three years old, three and a bit, just old enough to be out of the harness things children wore in those days. Know what I mean? You’d have them on the end of long straps, like a bridle, and there would be little animals on the front, the piece that went across the chest. Teddy bears or rabbits or something. Tushy’s used to have a white rabbit on it.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Liz told him.
‘Anyway, she was out of the harness by then. Very proud of herself.’
He paused again. Liz kept silent as Reginald called up his past.
‘We’d gone shopping one Saturday morning, all three of us: me and Cecily and Mary. We lived in Tunbridge Wells by then. We moved here just after Tush was born. Ideal house for bringing up children. Big garden. Away from the traffic.’
He drained his port, and Liz sipped from her glass. Its deep, peppery flavour tickled her tongue delightfully. Reggie poured himself another glass.
‘We were going along Mount Pleasant. Didn’t have supermarkets in those days; couldn’t get everything under one roof like you do now. Had to go to the greengrocer for fruit and vegetables, baker for bread, fishmonger for fish …’
‘I know,’ said Liz gently, keeping her eyes steadily on his face.
‘Mary and I were queuing in the butcher, each holding one of Cecily’s hands, had her between us. Mary said something like, “I’ll just nip into the baker and pick up a fresh Hovis,” and I said, “Fine, you do that,” and she let go of Cecily and went out.’
‘Yes?’ prompted Liz.
‘Moment later – few seconds, no more – Tush said, “Can I go with Mummy?” and I said, “Course, darling,” and off she went. Not fifteen seconds had passed. Baker was one or two shops back. Mary was hardly out of the door. No distance at all.’
There was another silence, so prolonged that Liz picked up his silver lighter and lit the candles in the centre of the table. The mahogany table glowed with the reflection of their wavering, strengthening flame.
‘And then,’ said Reginald, in a harsh, resonant voice that came not from his throat nor his lungs but from deep in his guts, ‘then I heard the squeal of a big lorry braking. I knew immediately.’
It was true. He had known. He was trained for moments like that. Only this time there was no lever to pull, no joystick, no gunsights, nothing. Just his legs, rooted to the spot, paralysed.
‘After I don’t know how long I ran to the door. She was in the road. Under its wheels. Dead already. You could see there was no point in calling an ambulance, though someone did. She had died instantly.’
Liz reached over the table and put her cool hand over his. His flesh was puffy and hot.
‘My darling,’ she breathed, hardly audible. ‘I am so sorry. I am so dreadfully sorry. Darling Reggie. Poor Reggie.’
‘Not poor Reggie,’ he said. ‘It was my fault! No good telling me different. It was all my fault. I killed my daughter.’
‘Reggie. You didn’t. It was an accident. How could you have known?’
‘I did,’ he insisted. ‘Yes I did. Cecily Mary, died aged three years and five months. Beloved only child. Killed by her father’s carelessness.’
He Had never admitted it before. In the past, to Mary, he had always blustered and evaded and denied. He had never put the truth into words before. The guilt for her death lay at his door.