“And what are we going to do with it now?” asked Pat. “I’m not sure if I should take it back to the flat again.”
Matthew laughed. “That’s all right. I’ll take it back to my place.
Or even to the old man’s place. He’s got a safe.” He paused.
“Shall we have a celebration? What are you doing this evening?”
Pat considered this for a moment. She had no plans for that evening, and there was every reason to celebrate, but she was not sure how Matthew would interpret an acceptance of his invitation. There had been a purpose behind his asking about her feelings for Bruce – she was convinced of that – and she did not want to encourage him. If he was falling for her, then that would be messy. He was her employer; he was some years her senior – almost thirty, was he not? – and there were was another major reason why it would not work. She felt nothing for him, or, rather, not very much. He was decent, he was kind; but there was no attraction beyond that. He would be perfect for somebody who wanted a reliable, undemanding boyfriend, for somebody in
would love Matthew to take an interest in her? They could go to the Dominion Cinema together and sit in the more expensive seats and then, on the way out, look at the kitchenware in the kitchenware shop on the corner of Morningside Road. Pat had seen young couples doing that – standing in front of that window and gazing at the stainless steel cafetieres and the Le Creuset saucepans. What would it be like to stand there with somebody else – a man – and look at the pots and pans that seemed to be such potent symbols of future domestic bliss? What would it be like to stand there with Bruce . . .?
With Bruce? She stopped herself. The thought had come into her mind unbidden, as delicious, tempting thoughts do. Bruce would be wearing his Aitken and Niven rugby sweater and his olive green mock-moleskin trousers, and he would have his hand against the small of her back, and they would be thinking of their kitchen . . . No! No!
“Well?” said Matthew. “Are you doing anything tonight? I thought we could go to the Cumberland for a drink to celebrate.
It’ll be on me.”
Pat brought herself back from fantasy to reality. It would be churlish to refuse Matthew, and an outing to the Cumberland Bar would hardly be compromising. Plenty of people dropped in at the Cumberland with their workmates and nothing was read into the situation. It was not as if he was proposing an intimate diner a deux in the Cafe St Honore.
“And then we could and have dinner in the Cafe St Honore,”
Matthew said. “That is, if you’ve got nothing else on.”
He looked at her, and she saw the anxiety in his eyes. But she could not accept; she could not.
“Let’s just go for a drink,” she said. “I have to . . .” What lie could she come up with to put him off? Or could she tell the truth?
“I want to see Bruce later on,” she said. And as she spoke she realised that she had told the truth. She did want to see Bruce; she wanted to be with him again; it was physical, like a nagging pain in the pit of her stomach. And it alarmed her, for what he wanted was not what she wanted.
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Matthew lowered his eyes. He’s disappointed, she thought; and it would have been so easy for me to have dinner with him and make him happy, and now I have disappointed him.
“What about your crowd?” she asked brightly. “Will they be there?”
Matthew shrugged. “They may be. Maybe not. One’s going off to London for a few days this week – he may already have gone. And another has a heavy cold. So if the crowd turns up there won’t be many of them.”
He looked at her again, and she wondered what he was thinking. She had not lied to him, and so she could look back at him, meeting his gaze with all the satisfaction of one who has told the truth. She did want to see Bruce.
“Why are you so keen on him?” Matthew asked. “I thought
– from something you said some time ago – that he got on your nerves. Isn’t he vain? Didn’t you say something about that?”
“Yes,” said Pat. “Yes, he’s vain.”
Matthew looked impatient, as if there was something that was not being explained to him clearly enough. “How can you like him if he’s vain?” he asked. “Doesn’t that turn you off?”
Pat smiled. “It should,” she said. “Yes, it should. But it doesn’t, you know.”
“Very peculiar,” said Matthew. “Very peculiar.”
Pat said nothing. She did not disagree.
Sexual attraction, thought Matthew. The dark, anarchic force.
More powerful than anything else. Always there. Working away, but not for me.
Carrying the discreetly-wrapped Peploe? under his arm, Matthew escorted Pat to the Cumberland Bar for their celebratory drink. Any disappointment he had felt at the turning down of his invitation to dinner was, if still felt, well concealed. Matthew 240
