Even in the rain his smile was enough to stop traffic. Lucky all the traffic had stopped already.
Mum and Dad turned round on the steps and looked down at him, then at each other, then at me.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘This is my friend Jasper. He gave me a lift to the –’
‘Home,’ interrupted Jasper, speaking clearly and firmly. ‘I gave Sarah a lift home.’
‘Let’s get inside and get the kettle on,’ I said. Family drama was bad enough, but family drama in the lashing rain – no, thanks.
In my first-floor studio flat, wet coats were taken off and wet heads shaken while I scooted over to the little kitchen corner and put on the kettle. Hopefully I still had enough left on my electricity key to put the heating on for a bit. The room was arctic after a night spent out of it. My parents would pick up on that.
‘Am I right in thinking that you’re Sarah’s parents?’ Jasper’s voice.
I didn’t want to look at them, and concentrated fiercely on getting the teabags into the pot, opening the wonky fridge door without making it tip over, getting the milk out, sniffing it. Fine.
‘That’s right.’ Dad’s voice was guarded.
‘Have we met before?’ Mum sounded as if she was dredging her memory.
‘I don’t think so. Jasper Jay.’ I glanced around and saw him shaking hands with Dad, who was none the wiser, by the looks of things.
‘I’m sure I know you from somewhere … you look so familiar,’ Mum persisted.
‘Jasper used to be an actor,’ I said, over the gusty rattle of the kettle.
‘Oh!’ she cried, experiencing a revelation. ‘Of course. You were in Open Heart Surgery.’
‘That’s right. For my sins.’
They wandered over to my sofa and took places on its worn chintz.
‘Do you remember, Geoff?’ said Mum eagerly to Dad. ‘Years ago, mind you. It’s all different people now.’
‘I didn’t pay a lot of attention, I’m afraid,’ said Dad, a little brusquely. ‘You don’t act any more then?’
‘I direct,’ he said.
‘Brilliantly,’ I contributed, pouring the boiling water into the pot. ‘He’s won major international prizes.’
‘I’ve had a lot of luck and made some good contacts,’ he said, all self-effacing charm. I knew he intended to seduce my parents into approving of him, and if anyone could do it Jasper could, but I was still rather cross at how he’d inveigled his way into my parent-and-child reunion. I had not wanted to make our relationship public in this way and I felt railroaded.
‘Who was your character again?’ Mum was still a few conversational points behind. ‘The young maverick feller who was always coming a cropper with that moody consultant, what was his name?’
‘Reilly.’
‘Reilly, that’s right. And you were … Dr Stanwyck,’ she proclaimed triumphantly. ‘I used to like your character. He always stood up for his principles, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. Right up until I got stabbed in the ward by my jealous stalker ex-girlfriend. In the heart, too. Tragic irony.’
‘I was sorry they wrote you out like that. I prefer it when they leave the door open for a character to come back.’
‘I asked them to kill me off. I thought it’d motivate me to fight harder for success in my new career. I didn’t want an easy fallback.’
‘Brave of you,’ said Dad. ‘Giving up a sure-fire earner like that.’
‘Brave or stupid,’ said Jasper and they chuckled together.
Damn him! He was winning them over so easily. He was the Usain Bolt of charming birds out of trees.
‘And how long have you known our Sarah?’ asked Dad. Ah, the tone had changed. Not such a pushover after all.
I brought the tea tray over and put it on the table, pulled up the only remaining chair – an uncomfortable wooden one, unhappily for my bottom – and got to work on pouring the tea into the mismatching antique-fair cups.
‘Jasper’s who I was working for over the summer,’ I said. ‘The cataloguing job.’
‘Oh, Mr Jay,’ said Mum. ‘Oh. I see. I thought you said he was working overseas and you had the house to yourself? Didn’t you?’
‘Had to come back,’ explained Jasper. ‘Lead actor broke his leg and we had to postpone filming. So I got to know Sarah.’
‘She never said.’ Mum frowned. ‘You never said anything about him coming back, love.’
‘Didn’t I? Sorry, I didn’t think to,’ I said, feeling hot-cheeked and under suspicion.
‘You make friends with a famous film director and it’s not news?’ Dad sipped at his tea.
‘I’d have taken out an advert in the paper,’ said Mum.
‘We’re not all as easily star struck as you,’ I said tetchily.
‘Sarah,’ rumbled Dad.
‘Sorry. Just … I didn’t really know who he was. It didn’t seem that big a deal to me.’
Dear Lord, I was digging myself in deeper and deeper. Now it was Jasper’s turn to look affronted. He looked at me for an uncomfortably long time, then said, ‘But you know now. Don’t you?’
I put down my cup. My hand was too shaky and I was close to spilling its contents.
‘Of course I do,’ I said, not knowing where to look.
‘So you’re … friends?’ said Mum uncertainly.
It must have been bleeding obvious what the situation was.
‘We both love history,’ I said. ‘He has the most beautiful collection – you should see it.’
‘Yes,’ said Jasper, ‘you should. In fact, why don’t you come over? I’ll do brunch for us all and you can take a good look around.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, we need to get back, our neighbour’s looking after the dogs.’ said Dad doubtfully, but Mum nearly snapped his hand off.
‘How lovely!’ she trilled.
Dad was outvoted, somehow, even though I was on his side.
‘But my article,’ I said to Jasper.
‘How long is it?’
‘Two thousand words.’
‘That’s nothing. You can do that in an evening. Come on. Let’s go. I’m freezing my bloody boll– Pardon my French. Spent too long in France this year. My house is warm and the cupboards are full of food. Mr and Mrs Wells, you are more than welcome.’
The teacups were replaced, still half-full, on the tray and everyone made a dash for the coat pegs.
‘You’d better come with us, Sarah,’ said Dad. ‘We’ll need directions.’
‘You can follow Jasper, can’t you?’ I said, wanting a private conversation with that gentleman before the situation grew much older.
But Jasper foiled me. ‘He could lose sight of me on the dual carriageway. If you get stuck behind a lorry, you could miss the turn-off. Better go with your Mum and Dad, love.’
Argh! He called me ‘love’. How many more signposts did my parents need?
I followed them to their car and got into the back seat – an act that made me feel small and childish once more, not the confident adult I was aiming to project.
‘Is it far?’ asked Dad, easing out of the space and following Jasper to the end of the road.
‘No. Ten minutes or so. I took the summer job there because it was so handy for the museum. Thought I could go up and visit at weekends, get myself fully prepared.’
‘And you’re still in touch?’ said Dad, turning the corner. ‘He’s quite a bit older than you, isn’t he?’
‘About twelve, thirteen years, I think,’ I said vaguely.
‘Pushing forty,’ said Dad. ‘And you’re fresh out of college.’
Mum tutted. ‘Oh, Geoff. I think he seems lovely.’
‘Obviously loaded,’ continued Dad. ‘I expect he can pay for anything he wants. I expect he’s used to getting everything he wants.’
He gave me a look in the rear-view mirror. I avoided it and glared through the window.
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ I said stiffly.
‘Come on, love, do you think we were born yesterday? He certainly wasn’t.’
Mum intervened, pouring her rose-scented oil on to the troubled waters.
‘Give them a break,’ she said. ‘Goodness, it’s not as if he’s some low-life character. He seems very nice, he’s got a good job and earns good money and he’s got a bit of life experience. What on earth’s wrong with that?’
Dad was silent, but his eyes were narrow, focusing intently on getting into the right lane of the dual carriageway.
‘I don’t really care what my friends earn,’ I said. ‘Or how old they are. If you get on, you get on.’
‘Quite,’ said Mum.
‘And then, when you’ve had enough, you get off,’ said Dad.
‘Dad!’ I wasn’t sure what he meant, but it sounded rude. He probably didn’t intend it to, but all the same …
‘What I mean to say,’ he qualified, ‘is that … oh … Sarah, just keep your head on your shoulders, eh? I don’t want to see you taken for a ride.’
I inherited my cautious nature from him and I understood what he was saying. I half agreed with it myself. I didn’t want Jasper to become an indispensable part of my life. I was too afraid of the consequences of losing him.
‘I’m not an idiot, Dad,’ I said.
‘I know you aren’t,’ he replied, and his tone of quiet pride settled me and made me feel that everything was going to be all right.
The rain was still going strong as we followed Jasper up the driveway. The first glimpse of the house through the avenue of poplars made Mum gasp – actually gasp.
‘You didn’t tell me he lived in Downton bloody Abbey,’ said Dad.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s a tenth the size of that. A twentieth, even.’
‘Still, you wouldn’t get much change out of five million for it. Is it too late for me to retrain as an international film director, d’you think?’
‘I think most of his money came from wise investing by his accountant, actually,’ I said, recalling a conversation he’d had on the phone in my hearing. ‘The film earnings aren’t the half of it.’
‘I hope he’s not one of these Amazon types who don’t pay their taxes,’ said Mum, a little tight-lipped.
‘He definitely pays his taxes. He’s a huge supporter of the British film industry and gets really upset when he thinks the government are going to cut grants.’
‘Good.’
We were out of the car now and I was walking a little ahead with Mum while Dad followed more slowly, taking note of the plants and trees in the garden. No doubt he was fixing it all in his memory for next week’s Allotment Club.
Mum nudged me and whispered into my ear.
‘Anyway, I think he’s absolutely gorgeous.’
‘He’s not bad,’ I said, still keeping my cards close.
‘Rich, good-looking, well-mannered.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘But, like Dad says, be careful.’
Careful, eh? I had to admit, the way I’d played our relationship had been many things, but careful wasn’t one of them. I wished I could get rid of this feeling of being in over my head with no idea how to breach the surface again. Perhaps that was what love was. Perhaps I just had to learn to live with it.
Jasper sheltered under the porch roof, waiting for us with a smile.
‘What a beautiful house,’ exclaimed Mum. ‘I don’t suppose you grew up here?’
‘Actually, I did,’ said Jasper, and now it was my turn to gasp.
I hadn’t known that about him. Why hadn’t I known it about him? The knowledge of how little I knew of his background, after all, crept over me, casting me in shadow for the rest of the visit.
Dad brought up the rear and commenced a barrage of gardening-related questions that took us through the hall to the kitchen.
‘I have a gardener,’ said Jasper, when he could get a word in. ‘He’s the man to talk to about it.’
He must have replaced Will, I thought. We had spent the whole summer here minus a groundsman and things had started to grow a bit wild. Everything was perfectly tended again now, though. He had never mentioned a new gardener. We hadn’t talked about it. What on earth did we talk about? I racked my brain. Sex and the Victorians. That was about it. Shouldn’t we be having a few different conversations by now?
‘So, do you want to eat first and have a look round afterwards? Or vice versa?’ asked Jasper, getting pans and utensils out of the big wooden cupboards.
‘We should eat first,’ I said rapidly, remembering something. ‘Pancakes, go on. You do great pancakes. I just need to, uh, powder my nose.’
My familiarity with Jasper’s pancakes might be incriminating evidence of a sexual relationship, but it had just occurred to me that there was evidence even more incriminating to be found if the grand tour was going to include the study.
I hastened up the back stairs and across the hall to the room in question. Yes, they were all out on display in Jasper’s customised umbrella rack in the corner of the room. I picked up the collection of rattan canes, so many canes of varying weights and lengths, and shoved them down the back of his writing desk. There. Now the empty umbrella stand looked weird, but unless you knew, you probably wouldn’t think anything of it.
That bit of damage limitation sorted, I flew upstairs to Jasper’s bedroom. The bed was unmade, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was the set of Velcro cuffs attached to the headboard. I hid them away under the pillows and pulled the covers up over them. Was there anything else? Lube on the nightstand. Into the top drawer it fell.
Satisfied with my work, I flitted back down to the kitchen, where the batter was made and coffee was brewing.
Jasper was giving my parents the full after-dinner speech routine and they were laughing uproariously at his anecdotes of hospital-soap life. It was nice, I thought, sliding on to the bench beside them with a faint wince. It was a bit like normality. Could this be all right after all?
He ladled batter into the pan and got plates from the dresser. Under the grill, rashers of bacon gave the air that blissful Sunday-morning scent.
‘You’re very efficient,’ said Mum. ‘Are you sure I can’t give you a hand?’
‘No, no. Sarah, you know where everything is. Can you squeeze some juice for us?’
He was definitely intent on making it understood that we were lovers, I thought. Well, we were, after all. The parents hadn’t objected yet, so perhaps we were home and dry.
The anecdotes flew on, thick and fast, while a stack of pancakes built up on the warming plate.
He served them up, with bacon, and then handed a squirty bottle of maple syrup to my Mum.
She frowned.
‘Ooh, I don’t know. It doesn’t quite sit right with me – bacon and syrup.’
‘You have to try it,’ said Jasper, still leaning over her. ‘I promise you, you won’t regret it.’
‘It’s very American, isn’t it?’ she said, still doubtful.
‘Yes, and that’s where I got the taste for it. You aren’t going to disappoint me now, by being one of those people who never tries anything new, are you? That’s not you, is it, Jean?’
She went all giggly and blushful at that.
‘Oh, go on, then. You’ve twisted my arm.’
I knew that wild horses wouldn’t drag my Dad to a squirty bottle of maple syrup, so I discreetly shoved the HP Sauce down the table to him before Jasper could even try.
‘So are you filming anything now?’ asked Mum.
Red alert. I stopped chewing my pancake and tried to give Jasper a look that said don’t talk about the new movie.
‘I’ve a film in post-production,’ he said. ‘I’m in London a lot of the time, at the editing suite. It should be out next year – it’s about a rich playboy who pisses off a lot of people and gets murdered. Sorry. He, uh, upsets a lot of people.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Mum, with a wave. Jasper had lightened her up by about fifteen shades. She usually hated swearing. ‘It sounds like a thriller, then. Is it a thriller?’
‘It’s not so much a thriller as a dissection of the thriller genre,’ said Jasper.
Oh, dear. Rocky ground here. As soon as a person started to sound pretentious my Dad started to get an allergic reaction.
‘So it’s a thriller, then?’ said Dad.
‘Geoff!’
But Jasper laughed. ‘Yeah, pretty much.’
Dad paused to masticate his pancake, then spoke again.
‘So, you and Sarah, then,’ he said.
More nervous twitching from me, a genial smile from Jasper.
‘Is it serious?’
‘Dad.’ Oh, the agony. I knew this would happen.
‘Serious?’ Jasper maintained his gleaming grin. ‘We’re in a relationship, yes,’ he said. ‘And I would describe it as serious, but perhaps she’s the one you should be asking.’
‘It’s early days,’ I muttered. ‘Playing it by ear.’
‘Very sensible,’ said Dad. ‘Thanks for a lovely meal. Now I think Jean’s champing at the bit to look around this house of yours.’
The tour took some of the pressure off. Jasper and I both enjoyed talking about the furnishings and artworks, slipping into our comfort zones with gratitude.
In the hallway, Mum and Dad made their apologies and said they really had to get back for the dogs now, and could they drop me off? But Jasper said he’d take me home, and I was glad, because I had things to say to him.
* * *
‘There, that wasn’t too painful, was it?’ he said briskly, pointing the key at his car and bleeping the locks.
‘I think you could have waited,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t fair to spring it on me – or them – like that.’
‘Love, you’d have put it off for ever.’
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I had a reason for that, though. Did I have a reason for it?
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ I said, getting into the car. ‘But I might have waited until I knew a bit more about you.’
He looked up from the ignition, his eyebrows aloft.
‘You know everything about me,’ he said. ‘Everything important. Nobody knows me like you do.’
‘I didn’t even know the house was inherited,’ I said. ‘You never talk about your parents, except to say that your Mum wants to meet me. You never talk about your past.’
‘It’s not very interesting, that’s all,’ he said, reversing on to the driveway. ‘The present’s much more so. The future’s even better.’
‘Why don’t you talk to me?’
‘Sarah, what the fuck? I talk to you all the time.’
‘Only to give orders.’
‘No.’ He looked at me, exasperated. ‘What is this? A tiff?’
‘At least it’s normal. Couples do argue. It’s part and parcel of a relationship.’
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but I wish you’d say it.’
‘I’m saying … I don’t know what I’m saying. I feel rushed and unsettled and uncertain about things.’
‘Uncertain?’ The look in his eyes would haunt me, before he turned them back to the road.
‘I don’t mean about you. I mean … I don’t know what I mean. It’s all happened so fast and so weirdly. My friends meet guys who text them and flirt with them and ask them out and maybe stand them up so the whole thing starts again and then there’s the “who will call first” stand-off and then maybe, after weeks, months, it starts to look viable … you know …’
‘You want that?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Actually, I hate all that game-playing crap. But it’s just, oh, Jasper, sometimes it just seems too good to be true. And I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Do you know what I mean? It isn’t you. It’s me.’
He laughed, but there was not much mirth in it.
‘Isn’t that the classic brush-off line?’
‘I don’t mean it that way.’
‘You’d better not.’
‘I suppose,’ I said, trying to get my thoughts straight. ‘I’d like to know where I’m going before I get there. With us, it’s like a magic-carpet ride and it’s fantastic, a rush, but we get to places before I realise what or where they are. Does that make sense?’
‘You’re overwhelmed?’
‘It’s not that surprising, is it?’
‘No.’ He pulled into the parking space outside my building. ‘You didn’t want your parents to know about me.’
‘I wanted it to be a mutual decision, Jasper. I don’t want our life outside the bedroom to be the same as it is inside. I don’t want you taking charge of me.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Things aren’t the way I thought they were. Right.’
‘Don’t be like this. Come inside. Let’s talk.’
‘You’ve got an article to write. And I’ve got calls to make. Go on. I don’t want you accusing me of ruining your career.’
‘Jasper …’
‘I’ll see you later.’