and to come up with a new life scheme.’
‘Did she? You know more about it than I do.’
‘Yes, she did. And then she came in again and found me waiting in the anteroom, and we danced together just before I left.’ I thought of Serena’s blank eyes and her muttered ‘these things are such milestones.’ She might have said millstones. It would have been just as true.
‘I see. Well, perhaps you’re right about Damian. I hope so. But he’s had his revenge in a way. He ended up a figure of far greater significance than any of the rest of us. I wonder if Pel and Roo ever think about that.’
‘You did have a soft spot for him, then?’
‘Damian? Oh, absolutely. I adored him. As I told you, we did have a bit of a thing, but it was earlier in the year than all this. Once Damian and Serena got together, I don’t remember him being involved with anyone else in our crowd.’
‘Until after.’
She blushed, slightly. ‘Oh, yes. After. But you know how it is during the lonely years. Before life settles.’
‘Can I ask an impertinent question?’
She smiled. ‘I think after the talk we’ve just had I can hardly prevent it.’
‘Who was Archie’s father? Did I know him? Was he one of the gang from that era? Or was it someone you met when it was over?’
‘It’s hard to say.’
Which seemed a peculiar reply. ‘Do you ever see him now?’
‘I don’t know.’ I stared at her, looking, I imagine, fairly puzzled and she laughed. ‘These days I’m an old, respectable banker’s widow, but it was not always thus. You must know that everyone has some parts of their life that are hard to reconcile with their present.’
I nodded. ‘I know it better than most.’ And I certainly already knew it about her.
‘The truth is I’m not quite sure who Archie’s father was. I bounced around a fair bit at that time. I think my excuse was that I’d lost my way or I was trying to find myself, or some other Sixties cliche that allowed me to do as I pleased without feeling guilty, and I took full advantage of the philosophy. Then, one day I woke up pregnant. Every single entry in my address book wanted me to get rid of it, of course, friends and family alike, but I wouldn’t and I am terribly grateful now.’
‘But you never tried to find out?’
‘I didn’t see the point. What would I have gained? Someone poking their nose in where it wasn’t wanted? Some emotional cripple who felt he had the right to lean on me because I’d carried his child? At one stage I thought it might be George Tremayne. I was pretty sure later that it wasn’t, but imagine what it would have been like having him getting sloshed at the kitchen table.’ I grimaced. ‘So, no. I decided to battle through it alone.’
‘How were you sure? That it wasn’t George?’
She thought for a moment. ‘I heard that he was having trouble getting his wife pregnant. That rather chubby girl whose father made cars. She’d got two children by a first husband, so it couldn’t have been her.’ She nodded, satisfied with her own conclusions. ‘Anyway, having Archie put me back on the straight and narrow. It was a bumpy road for a bit, even if it was straight, and God knows it was narrow. But it led me to Harry.’
‘So there was a happy ending.’
She smiled. ‘That’s so nice. To hear Harry described as my happy ending. These days everyone who says his name bursts into tears. But they’re wrong and you’re right. He was my happy ending. And now,’ she stood, stretching herself, ‘I really must go to bed or I’ll die.’
I was deep in a dream involving Neil Kinnock and Joan Crawford and a woman who used to work for my mother as a cleaner called Mrs Pointer. We were all trying to have a picnic on Beachy Head, but the tartan rug kept blowing up and spilling everything, and for some reason we couldn’t weight it down. Until we decided to lie on it to hold it steady, but how can that have worked and what did we do with the food? Which didn’t seem to matter much, as Joan was squeezing into my back and she slid an arm round my waist, letting her hand slide down as she did so, and… I woke up. Except I hadn’t woken up, because although it was fairly dark and I wasn’t at a picnic any more, I could still feel Joan’s body pressed into mine and a gentle hand enfolding my erect penis, and then a voice said ‘are you awake?’ very softly, and it didn’t sound at all like Joan’s. Not a bit. It wasn’t even American. I thought about this for a moment, because the voice was familiar and I felt I should know it but I didn’t recognise it until it spoke my name, and suddenly I knew beyond any doubt… it was Serena’s. It was Serena Belton’s voice and she was here beside me, with her hand on my penis. And then I still couldn’t believe I wasn’t dreaming, because this, after all, was my lifelong dream, and I began to wonder whether I was in a dream within a dream, when you think you’ve woken up but you haven’t. And I might have gone on thinking this for a bit longer if her lips had not nestled into the side of my cheek and I turned, and she was there.
In the flesh. In my arms. In my bed.
‘Is this really happening?’ I whispered, afraid that if I spoke too loudly the whole mirage would shimmer and disappear. It was very early dawn and the soft, dim, grey light had begun to creep in through the cracks in the curtains, lightening the room just enough for me to make her out, her shining, sacred head on the pillow next to mine.
‘It is if you want it to.’
I smiled. ‘Do you make a habit of stealing into men’s rooms at night?’
‘Only when they’re in love with me,’ she said.
I still could not accept this gift from heaven. ‘But why? I know you don’t love me. We had a long discussion about it this very afternoon.’ Of all things, I didn’t want to frighten her away, but I did want to understand.
‘I love your love,’ she said. ‘I don’t pretend to share it, and when we were young I doubt that I was much more than amused. But as the years went on and bad things happened, I always knew one man in the world at least loved me. And that was you. Seeing you again reminded me of it.’
