'It's a social skill.'
'And the girls too?'
'One has to remember whom a girl might marry — I'm quoting.'
Benjamin duly smiled.
'You see, there would never have been any need for my daughter to learn to shoot.' As he seemed puzzled: 'We aren't aristocrats.'
'But surely it might come in useful? Didn't you say she lives in California?'
'Not this kind of shooting. Those children will never shoot at anything that isn't pheasant or grouse or deer. If there isn't a war, that is.'
'I have to confess there are times when this country seems an anachronism.'
'When I visit your Kashmiri lake in Oregon I'll remind you of that.'
He laughed. She was so far from laughing she could have fallen and lain weeping on the grass. They finished the tour and then he said he might as well be off. She accompanied him to his car. Guilt caused her to be effusive. She could hear herself making conversation, but she hardly knew what. He said he would be in England again in November. Off he roared in his powerful car. To the airport. Then to California. To the pleasurable work of financing attractive ideas and then watching them become realities. A modern magician.
Only Stephen and Sarah were having lunch. Henry had gone to meet his wife and son. Elizabeth and Norah were visiting friends. The company had hired a coach to take them around the Cotswold villages.
Their food remained untouched on their plates.
'Sarah, I know I'm a bore, but I must ask you… when your husband died, did you grieve for him — that sort of thing?'
'I've been asking myself that. I was unhappy, very. But how I wonder… What else have I not
'Yes. But behind this line of thought is an assumption. If you don't feel the right emotion at the right time, it accumulates. Well, it seems pretty bogus to me.'
'But how does one know?'
'Why didn't you marry again?'
'You forget, I had two small children.'
'That wouldn't stop me if I wanted a woman.'
'But we didn't know each other then.'
He allowed this a smile, made an impatient movement with his hand, but then was overtaken by a laugh. 'A pity we haven't fallen in love with each other,' he said. Here the faintest cloud of reminiscent anxiety crossed his face, but she reassured him with a shake of the head. 'Because we are really so extraordinarily… compatible.'
'Ah, but that would be too sensible.' Then she faced him with 'But I've been remembering something. When I had love affairs, I never took him to my bedroom. The bed I shared with my husband. Always the spare room. Then one of them made a point of it. He said, 'I'm sick of being the guest. You're still married, did you know that?' And that was it. He left.'
'You were very fortunate, Sarah. At first I think Elizabeth and I did pretty well, but never — '
'Would you say those two women are married?'
'Yes, I would. They certainly exclude everyone else.' His voice was full of hurt. A noisy wasp was investigating a puddle of mayonnaise on a plate. This gave him the excuse to put a knife blade under it and get up to shake it into the garden. He came back, having determined to go on, and went on. 'That includes the children.' A pause. 'Elizabeth was never a maternal woman. She never pretended to be. Why should women be? A lot aren't.' A pause. 'I try to make it up to the children.'
'I think Norah would like to be more of a mother to the children.'
His face showed this was not a new thought to him. 'Well, I'm not stopping her.' He pushed away his plate, chose a peach from a bowl, and methodically cut it up. 'Believe it or not, I'm sorry for her. Norah, I mean. She's a sort of cousin of Elizabeth's. She was down on her luck — her marriage went wrong.'
They let the subject go. There are people who seem to compel heartlessness or at least neglect. Everything, [LOST seem more important than Norah.
'When are you leaving, Sarah?'
'Tomorrow. Jean-Pierre's coming to tonight's performance. And we shall discuss everything in London.'
'I'm coming to London too.'
'You're going to leave… Susan? I wouldn't have the strength of mind.'
'Nothing to do with strength of mind.' He sprinkled sugar on the melting yellow pieces of peach, picked up his spoon, set it down, pushed the plate away. 'The one thing I didn't bargain for was that Julie would dwindle into a good fuck. You're a good fuck, she says. I can't say I'm not flattered.' Here he smiled at her, a real, affectionate smile, all of him there. 'She's a hard little thing. But she doesn't know it. She keeps saying that I'm sexist. With a coquettish giggle. I told her there was nothing new about her ideas. Women have always agreed that a man must be redeemed by the love of a good woman. She gave me a real curtain lecture, the full feminist blast. The trouble is, you see, she's pretty stupid.'
Another wasp, or the same one, came to the cut-up peach and began to drown in melted sugar. He left it to its fate.
'Sarah, my life doesn't add up to anything — no, listen. If I'd earned the money, it would be a different matter. My grandfather earned it all.'
She was too surprised to speak.
'I envy Benjamin. He uses money.'
'Don't you?'
'I keep things going, anyone could do it.' He got up. 'I told the boys I'd take them riding.'
'I saw you this morning teaching them to shoot.'
'If one only knew what sort of life they should be educated for. I wish I knew. They learn all the new things at school — computers. As well as the usual things. James can drive. He can use maps and a compass. They can shoot. They can ride. I'll make sure they won't be dependent on craftsmen to do their plumbing for them — that kind of thing. They aren't artistic at all, not musical. They do well at games at school. That's still important.'
'Do they know how to read?'
'A good question. But that's asking a lot these days. James has some books in his room. Norah still reads to the younger ones. But perhaps shooting will turn out to be the most useful thing in the end. Who knows?'
Mid-afternoon. Henry's car came to a crunchy stop on the gravel. He jumped out to open the door for his wife. Out stepped a small woman, almost invisible because of the large child in her arms. She set him down, and the little boy, about three years old, rushed into his father's arms with screams of delight. Now it could be seen that Millicent was pretty and blonde, if that was an adequate word for the casque or fleece of yellow hair which, like Alice's, fell almost to her waist. From it a little determined face smiled while Henry whirled his son around and then again, before setting him down, but Joseph refused to be put down. He clung to his father's legs until Henry picked him up again. Millicent stood looking about her. It was a competent but above all democratic inspection: she was refusing to be diminished by ancestral magnificence. She smilingly faced the big steps, where Stephen, Elizabeth, Norah, and Sarah were waiting. She had a philosophical look. They have a hard task, the wives, husbands, loved ones generally of the adventurous souls who so recklessly (and so often) immerse themselves in these heady brews and who have to be reclaimed for ordinary life: talked down, brought down, reintroduced to — reality is the word we use. Norah descended the steps to help carry up the innumerable cases, hold-alls, bags, of toys and clothes and comics necessary for a contemporary child's well-being. (Children, that is, of certain countries.) She and Millicent managed it all, because Henry's arms were full, and likely to remain so. His face and his son's were joyous.
Introductions were made, and the family went upstairs; Norah went with them to show the way. She came down in a few minutes, joining the others in the little sitting room, where tea was waiting for them. Her smile, as so often, was brave, this time because of the tender scene she had been observing. Elizabeth and Stephen were
