‘Writing postcards?’ Ellie pauses beside the table, baby Alice in her arms. ‘For heaven’s sake send one to your mother. She’s only still speaking to me because of the children. Who are you writing to?’
He decides that it would be silly to lie about it: in fact the truth might be valuable here. So far the holiday has been an unhoped-for success. The children are delighted to see him, Tom especially, and Ellie is relaxed. A rather delightfully teasing atmosphere is quickly established between them: an odd combination of familiarity and shyness that lends a frisson of excitement to the normal family scene. This is assisted by the presence of their closest friends, Jo and Ed, who are intent on bringing Ellie and Paul together again. Though they are tactful, Paul senses that they are on his side and it helps that they have already made the move from London, though Ed still commutes in from Kent.
Of the two women Ellie is the younger and more impressionable, and it becomes clear to Paul that she is enjoying being at the centre of the discussions that take place at suppertime when the children are in bed. The foursome gives her the opportunity to make points that, were she and Paul on their own, might simply lead to bitter arguments and angry silences. He begins to suspect that things are less bleak than he feared. Ellie is cross that he has acted without her approval: she wants to punish him for it, to show him that he can’t dictate to her, but somehow the situation has spiralled out of control and she needs a mechanism that allows her to back down gracefully.
He says as much to Ed, who is not so patient as Jo with Ellie’s behaviour.
‘I was beginning to think that she’d met someone,’ says Paul, voicing his greatest fear. ‘I know all her friends are in London and she loves working at the playschool a couple of mornings a week but I’ve had difficulty believing that these were more important to her than me and the kids. I’d begun to believe that either she’d met someone else or she just didn’t care. It throws you a bit: makes you wonder whether you’ve got things wrong and your marriage isn’t what you thought it was.’
Ed shakes his head. ‘She’s painted herself into corner,’ he says, ‘and you need to offer her a plank so that she can get out. But it has to be an acceptable plank; one that enables her to hang on to her self-respect while she’s crawling across it.’
Meanwhile Paul overhears odd snatches of the talks Jo and Ellie have while they are sitting on the beach with their children – Jo and Ed have two small children of their own. Jo’s comments are of a practical nature:
‘. . . after all, how would you manage to earn a living whilst Alice is so small? Childcare is so expensive . . . Could you afford to continue to live where you are? I suppose you might find a flat if you really can’t face the move to Bath . . . Shunting the children between Bath and London will be hell. Paul must miss them terribly. He’s so good with them, isn’t he, and they absolutely adore him.’
Ellie is beginning to shift from what she has imagined is a position of sassy defiance – a youthful independence flying in the face of the stodgy norm – and is rather envying her friend’s placid confidence. Jo is expecting her third child and she is luscious with a sexy fecundity, peacefully maternal with the babies, calm and radiantly happy. As she describes the advantages of the village school with its own playschool, and the network she is already creating with the other mothers, she is aware of the envy she is arousing in Ellie and her descriptions climb to new heights of desirability. Listening to Jo, Paul occasionally detects a tiny note of self-convincing here – perhaps Jo misses the buzz of London more than she cares to admit. Nevertheless, she makes their new life sound idyllic: walking in the woods with the children, strolling down to the local pub, the puppy they intend to buy when they get back after the holiday.
He senses that Ellie is wavering, though he puts no pressure on her. He simply devotes himself to Tom and baby Alice, knowing that Ellie sees how strong the bond is between him and his children.
‘Look, I know it’s the big one,’ Ed says one evening when the children are sound asleep, exhausted after a day of sand and sun. He leans across the table to fill up the glasses with more wine. ‘Leaving London is like really accepting that you’re not young any more. You’ve begun to think about the kids and schools and being in the country. London represents our youth: theatres and restaurants and all those things—’
‘Even if you never go out any more,’ interrupts Jo, ‘because you can’t get a baby-sitter and anyway you can’t afford it. We miss it – of course we do – but the extra space in the house and the peace of being in the country is fantastic.’
‘But I just don’t feel ready for that,’ argues Ellie – but the familiar cry sounds less confident. She is ready to be persuaded. ‘All my friends are still in London. I’d miss having everything right on the doorstep.’
‘But Bath, Ellie,’ says Jo. ‘Christ! You’ve still got everything on your doorstep. It’s a fantastic city. We’d kill to be able to live in Bath.’
Paul can see that now Ellie is influenced by their envy and he wisely says nothing to advance his own cause.
Ed is more upfront. ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘we’re talking marriages here. Surely you can’t really tell me that living in London is more important than being with Paul, all of you together as a family. It’s a bloody good job and a nice big house to go with it. Come on, Ellie. Time to grow up.’
Paul sees Jo’s warning frown, guesses that Ed has been told to be sensitive, but, surprisingly, Ellie takes it very well. Of course, they’ve all had rather a lot to drink, and the holiday mood is helping, but it wouldn’t take too much for the whole conversation to swing out of control and Paul decides to intervene.
‘Don’t bully her, Ed,’ he says. ‘She’s old enough to make her own decisions. Is that someone crying?’
He gets up and goes out into the hall. He hasn’t heard anything but feels that it’s time to break it up and let the conversation channel off into a different direction.
‘You’re crazy,’ he hears Ed say to Ellie. ‘Anyone else would be telling you to stuff it. Perhaps he’s found an obliging French mistress.’
‘Oh, shut up, Ed,’ says Jo. ‘Give it a rest. Coffee anybody?’
Paul hears the chair legs squeak as they are pushed back over the slate floor and he hurries a few steps up the stairs. When Ellie appears in the hall he seems to be coming back down. He smiles and shakes his head.
‘Hearing things,’ he says. She looks rather preoccupied, shaken by Ed’s remark perhaps, and he smiles at her. ‘How about a stroll on the beach? Jo will keep an ear open. It’s fantastic out there.’
He tucks her arm in his, just as he does with Daisy, and they walk slowly over the sand. He is gratified that she seems to take no interest in the calm beauty of the night but begins to ask questions about his work and his colleagues. He tells her about one or two of them, deliberately sounding rather vague, and her interest sharpens as though she suspects him of hiding something.
So it is that when he sits down at the table to write his postcard to Daisy he decides not to prevaricate.
‘Writing postcards?’ she asks casually. ‘Who are you writing to?’
‘It’s the girl who lives in the flat upstairs,’ he says. ‘Daisy Quin. She’s a ballet dancer but she’s got this serious injury and has been left behind while the company goes on tour. It’s really tough on her. She’s rather good fun. I took her to the ballet. Remember I told you I’d been given a couple of tickets but you couldn’t make the trip down? She was thrilled. It was really interesting to see it from the professional dancer’s point of view.’
Careful, he tells himself. Don’t overdo it.
He bends more closely over the card so that Ellie can’t see the words and he takes it to the post-box himself. After this interchange Ellie is rather quiet but he pretends not to notice, playing a noisy game with the children and then taking them off to swim.
By the time the holiday ends he can see that Ellie has been shocked into a new awareness of the situation and, when they say goodbye, she holds him tightly before she gets into the car and drives away.
Paul finished his beer and put the can in the bin. He thought of Daisy’s expression when he’d made some excuse about not going up to her flat and his own reaction to it: he simply hadn’t been able to let her walk away with that look of disappointment and embarrassment on her face, yet he knew that it was unfair to give her any kind of encouragement. If only he could get through the next few days without seeing too much of her, then perhaps the move out of Henrietta Street might solve the problem naturally and in its own way.
In his study he paused to look at the photographs of Ellie with Alice and Tom. Perhaps he might have a call from Ellie soon telling him that she and the children would be joining him at the end of term. He’d decided to let her make the next move but, even so, he heaved a great, longing sigh: he missed them all so much.