‘Clever girl.’ I grimaced.
He nodded. Glanced away.
‘A lovely one too,’ I said quickly, in case he thought I was knocking her. ‘She’s got pretty much everything, actually. Beauty, charm, brains. Chad,’ I added foolishly with a laugh, then wished I hadn’t. I could feel myself colouring. Why was I gabbling? ‘But unfortunately we couldn’t match her in the cerebral department.’ More quotation marks in the air around cerebral. Why? ‘Well, not that we could match her in any department,’ gabble gabble, ‘certainly not the looks department, obviously! Not that we were trying to, or anything.’ Do
‘I hadn’t realized she was in your group.’ He’d moved to the window to look out at the street below; had his back to me. He’d gone a bit clipped and terse suddenly. Not so shiny-eyed.
‘Well, as I say, it’s pretty much defunct now anyway. Although one or two people were talking about forming another one, a sort of radical offshoot, but minus the highbrow literary slant.’
Peggy had indeed scurried across the road a few days ago to suggest we read the latest Philippa Gregory, and then meet at her place to discuss it. Thursday at eight, oh, and by the way, it was themed. What you were wearing when the ship went down. And bring a bottle. Angus had got his costume already, apparently.
‘Oh no, we can’t, Peggy,’ I’d said, appalled. ‘What will Chad and Hope think?’
‘Chad and Hope won’t know,’ she’d told me firmly, stubbing out her cigarette in my clump of asters by the front door.
I wasn’t sure I could share this disreputable secret with Sam, though. The Armitages were his friends, they rode together – hacked out, I believed was the expression – and anyway, he’d moved on from holding my eyes for longer than was strictly necessary and was gazing abstractedly at the traffic. I’d lost his attention and had his back.
‘Well, I’ll be away,’ I said shortly, after a pause. I felt faintly uncomfortable. ‘Thank you so much for the erm … water. And the couch.’ And the terribly strong manly arms sprang to mind too, but happily not to my vocal chords, although it was nip and tuck.
‘Don’t forget your papers.’ He seemed to collect himself suddenly and turned to cross to his desk, handing me a large folder, full, no doubt, of the details of my stonking great inheritance: the wherewithal to educate my children at Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Eton, to put me in the Hope, Chad, Simon and Sam brigade, I thought suddenly. Yes, Henley and Harvey Nichols, here I come. Why then, was there less of a spring in my step than there should have been, as I left his office?
I carried Archie down the stairs. He’d woken up and was beaming at me, cheeks flushed with sleep, drumming his corduroy bootees against my tummy. I seized one of them and kissed it hard. It was the mention of Hope, I knew, that had rendered him a bit mute; had heralded a change of mood. Was he in love with her? Wouldn’t be difficult. But she was so happily married. So very unavailable. We all knew she and Chad couldn’t keep their hands off each other, couldn’t keep out of the bedroom. I remembered the first time Jennie and I had met them whilst looking for Leila, both looking very post-coital. Still, that didn’t stop the old ticker disobeying orders, did it? All the evidence being against one? When had that ever stood in the way of true love, or even, I thought wryly, true infatuation? I sighed.
Out in the high street I popped Archie back in his pushchair and was about to head off down the street, when I glanced back over my shoulder. To my surprise, this time he was there, at the window. Was he watching me go, or had he returned to his reverie, the one that had so saddened him earlier? Either way, we both turned away sharpish as our eyes met and I hurried on my way to Waitrose.
When I got back to my house, I found Jennie coming away from my locked front door. She was hastening down the cobbled path, a look of utter despair on her face.
‘Oh, thank God!’ she cried, stopping in her tracks at the gate when she saw me approach, Archie in my arms.
‘What is it?’ I hurried towards her.
‘Quick, get in.’ She seized the key from my hand, ran back to unlock my door and hustled me inside. Then she slammed the door behind us, her eyes wild as she turned to me in the hallway.
‘What?’ I breathed, terrified. ‘What’s happened?’
Clemmie, was my first thought: fallen out of a tree at nursery, or an accident with the scissors. At my very first parents’ evening Miss Hawkins had told me, in a doom-laden voice, that Clemmie had a problem. Heart in mouth I’d anticipated bullying, early anorexia. On being gravely informed her scissor control was not all it should be, I’d been unable to suppress a laugh. I wasn’t laughing now. They’d tried to reach me, obviously, but my mobile was off.
‘Quick, tell me quick.’
