“Well, I like to oblige my friends. You’ll have to look in the paper for a place to rent. I got mine out of a window at the newsagent’s. But it wasn’t easy.”
“I know. There’s not a lot of accommodation about. It’s the same in Manchester, until I got my place in Hall I had to sleep on somebody’s floor. But you can’t do that with a baby.”
“You could always stop with me a bit, until you sort yourself out.”
“Oh, Lizzie.” Suzanne burst into tears. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it. To think that you should be so kind, when you’re almost a stranger and don’t know me at all, and my family who’ve known me all my life should be so horrible.” Impulsively she threw her arms around the daily woman and kissed her violently rouged cheek.
“The offer’s there,” Muriel said.
The last days of the summer term were worse this year than Colin remembered. There was the usual rush and muddle, the disorderly behaviour on the corridors; and then there was his mood. For three days running he lost his temper before Assembly; the days went downhill from there. He was churlish in the staff room, and was seen kicking the stencil machine. He lost an entire stack of reports—Form 3C’s—and they were turned up at last by one of the cleaners, who would surely reminisce about it for a year or more. He stayed late, signing them, tidying his desk, then lurked about in the staff lavatories, butting his head at a square of ill-lit mirror, trying to spot grey hairs. He couldn’t wait for the term to be over; though what ease, what leisure awaited him at home, better not to speculate. Better not to think too far ahead. He was conscious of an almost physical revulsion, a shrinking away, whenever he tried to imagine how his tangled circumstances might be unknotted. Even when school was let out and his pupils were set free to run amok down the High Street, he paced the empty corridors warily—echoes, white tiles—as if expecting an ambush.
Sylvia flew about the house, bossing the daily woman, nagging the children; she jangled her car keys and sprinted down the path. He tried to corner her, scrutinise her expression, lead her into conversational byways which would perhaps reveal what she made of the situation. Nine years ago she had been obtuse. Now social intercourse had sharpened her wits. Weekly at the Bishop Tutu Centre she listened to tales of human improvidence, criminality, and perversion. Nothing shocked her, she said. Let her only enquire too far into current events, and she might have to swallow her boast.
“Colin,” said Sylvia.
“Yes?”
“You ought to go and see this man Jim Ryan, and find out what’s going on.” She turned away, so that he couldn’t see her face.
Colin swallowed. “Where, at his home?”
“No, not at his home, Colin. At the bank.”
“Oh, but the fuss…at his place of work…”
“Is there going to be a fuss?”
“Well…that depends on his attitude.”
“Perhaps you’d rather I go?”
“No,” he said hurriedly, “no, Sylvia, I wouldn’t want that. I’ll deal with it. I promise you. We need to give Suzanne a little more time to come to terms with the reality of the situation. Then if she still insists that this man is going to set up house with her, I’ll do whatever’s needed—only please, Sylvia, let me do it in my own way.”
“You’re sweating, Colin.”
“The topic makes me uncomfortable.”
“Yes, I suppose it would.” He searched her face. “Perhaps I could ask Francis to talk to her,” she said.
“You can hardly ask a clergyman to talk her into an abortion.”
“Oh, Francis has some very modern attitudes. He’s full of common sense, you’d be surprised.”
Here we go, the same sickening conversational merry-go-round. Why doesn’t she take off with Francis, if that’s what she wants? I won’t stop her. And Suzanne should have Jim. And I should have Isabel. Even if it is some other Isabel; I should marry her for a penance, and for the sake of her name.
I think I’m going mad, Colin thought. And not a bad idea at that. Have the summer in a padded cell somewhere, and come home when it’s all over.
Francis—the Reverend Teller—came round just after midday. Claire was in the kitchen, making one of her cups of tea for Brownie Tea-Making Fortnight. Colin and Sylvia were preserving, between them, a strained silence. Colin noticed how his wife’s face brightened at the sight of Francis passing the kitchen window. She looked alert and keen, like someone ready to tackle a major social issue.
“Cup of tea?” Claire said.
“Why thank you, Claire, that’s kind. I’d rather have coffee, if it’s no trouble.”
“I don’t do coffee. Only tea.”
Sylvia got up. “Hello, Francis. I’ll get it. Claire, come from under my feet.”
“Don’t put yourself out,” said Francis in his relaxed way, which somehow implied that he was used to people putting themselves out but would waive his rights on this occasion. He was a solid man of forty-five, with blunt features and short cropped hair; despite his pacifist outlook, he was given to khaki clothing of military provenance, to ribbed sweaters with elbow patches, to epaulettes and complex trousers with pleated pockets buttoned on the thigh. When he laughed he showed pointed teeth which were unmistakably carnivorous. His whole person, Colin thought, exuded contradictions which were just too deep for hypocrisy and just too common for clinical schizophrenia.
“Hermione’s got us on the old camomile tea,” he said. “Gets it at the health-food shop. Must say I get a bit tired of it. Cup of Nescafe, strong, black, that’s the way I like it. Got any sweeteners?”
“How about sugar?”
