‘I’m starving,’ he said.
Serve you right, thought Harriet, you should have eaten that omelette.
He opened his mouth to speak, once again she turned on the waste disposal. For a minute they glared at each other, then he laughed.
‘Turn that bloody thing off. I’m going out to get some curry.’
Harriet’s mouth watered.
‘There’s a movie I want to watch later,’ said Cory.
‘Really,’ said Harriet, crashing pans.
‘Will you
Didn’t have any on, anyway, thought Harriet.
‘I’m sorry I’ve shouted at you and bullied you all day,’ he went on. ‘It was entirely my fault. I was feeling guilty about wasting a whole work day yesterday, and then being in no condition to do any work today. You’re a good girl. I’ve put on a bath for you, so go and have a long soak — by which time I’ll be back with the curry.’
Totally disarmed, Harriet gave a grudging smile. One had to admit that Cory had his moments.
She was just getting into her bath when she heard crying. It was William. She’d only just put him to bed. She wrapped a towel round her and went into his room. Immediately, he stopped crying and cooed and gurgled at her. His nappy was quite dry, but as soon as she’d tucked him up, and turned off the light he started yelling again.
She was just about to go back into the room when Cory came down the passage with his car keys.
‘Leave this to me,’ he said. In amazement Harriet watched him go over to William’s carry cot, wrap his arms into his shawl, winding it up tightly like an Indian papoose.
‘They like to feel secure,’ he said to Harriet.
William opened his mouth to bellow indignantly.
‘And you can shut up,’ said Cory sharply. ‘Give your poor mother a bit of peace.’
William was so surprised he shut his mouth and didn’t make another sound.
Out on the landing, Harriet blinked at him.
‘You’re absolutely brilliant with babies,’ she said.
‘Noel was never the maternal type,’ said Cory. ‘So I’ve had plenty of practice.’
They had a nice, relaxed evening, drinking red wine, sluttishly eating curry off their knees in the drawing room, and throwing the bones into the fire. Harriet enjoyed the film, but, as Cory was an expert on movies, was determined not to appear too enthusiastic.
‘It’s quite good,’ she said. ‘Although some of the dialogue’s a bit dated. Who wrote it?’
‘I did,’ said Cory.
Harriet was so glad the room was lit by the fire and Cory couldn’t see how much she was blushing.
‘Have some meat and mushroom, it’s quite good too. I wrote it,’ he went on, ‘with a Hollywood Pro called Billy Blake. It’s the last time I’ll ever collaborate with anyone. It shortened my life, but I learnt a lot.’
‘What was she like?’ said Harriet, as the heroine took off her dress.
‘Thick,’ said Cory.
‘And him,’ said Harriet, as the hero hurled her on to the bed.
‘Nice fag — lives with a hairdresser.’
‘Golly,’ said Harriet, ‘I never knew that. If you know all these people, why don’t you ever ask them up here?’
‘Film people are all right to work with,’ said Cory. ‘But I don’t want to go into their houses, and I don’t want them here, talking the same old shop, movies, movies, movies. And I don’t like the way they live, eating out every night in order to be seen. If you hang around with them you start believing you’re a star, everyone treats you like a star, and doesn’t act normally towards you, and you start thinking that’s the way people really behave, and you lose touch with reality — which is lethal for writers.’
He threw a chicken bone at the fire, it missed, and Tadpole pounced on it.
‘No, darling,’ said Harriet, retrieving it from him, ‘It’ll splinter in your throat.’
Cory emptied the bottle between their two glasses.
‘The script I’m doing now’s a bastard,’ he said. ‘It’s about the French Civil War in the seventeenth century.’
‘The
‘That’s right. It needs so much research.’
He picked up two biographies of French seventeenth-century aristocrats, which were lying on the table.
‘Instead of stuffing your head with novels, you could flip through these and see if you could find anything filmable.’
Harriet wiped her chicken-greasy fingers on Tadpole’s coat and took the books. ‘I could certainly try,’ she said.
Cory’s glass was empty. ‘Shall I get another bottle?’ she said.
‘Nope,’ said Cory. ‘That’s my lot for tonight. I’m not risking hangovers like yesterday any more. I’m turning over a new leaf. Bed by midnight, no booze before seven o’clock in the evening, riding before breakfast. Don’t want to die young, I’ve decided.’
‘I’ll cook you breakfast,’ said Harriet.
‘That’s going too far,’ said Cory nervously. ‘How did you get on with Sammy?’
Harriet giggled. ‘She’s staggeringly indiscreet.’
‘I hope you never discuss me the same way,’ said Cory.
‘I s-said you were absolutely marvellous,’ said Harriet, her words coming out in a rush. ‘Then you spoilt it by coming in and shouting about that telephone call from Italy. She’s going to take me to the Loose Box one evening to pick up rich Finns.’
‘Not sure that’s a very good idea. From all I’ve heard about that dive, “Loose” is the operative word.’
He picked up a handout from Jonah’s school that had been lying under the big biographies. ‘What’s all this?’
‘The Parents’ Association on the warpath again,’ said Harriet. ‘They want money for the new building, so they’re holding a Parents’ dance. Tickets are ?3.50 and for that you get dinner, and a glass of wine. You should go. You might meet Mrs Right.’
‘Not if I’m going on the wagon,’ said Cory. ‘I can’t allow myself lapses like that.’
Chapter Fourteen
Cory kept his word. He cut down smoking and drinking to a minimum and although occasionally she heard the gramophone playing long into the night, he was usually in bed by midnight.
Most evenings he would come downstairs and talk to her while she was giving William his last feed. They spent a lot of time together, gossiping, reading, playing records, and talking about Cory’s script. Harriet was enjoying the research she was doing for him; it was the first time she’d used her brain since Oxford. She also found she was taking more trouble with her appearance. She was tired of saving up money for her and William’s future. She wanted to buy some new clothes.
There were also two new additions to the household: Python, a little black mare who arrived from Ireland — Cory was delighted with her and immediately began getting her fit for the point-to-point — and Tarbaby, a lamb with a sooty face, whose mother had died on the moors, and who Harriet was trying to bring up with a bottle.
‘Just like having twins in the house,’ said Cory, as he watched her make up bottles for the lamb and William.
One Monday towards the end of March she was cooking breakfast and getting Jonah and Chattie off to school when Cory walked in. She still couldn’t get used to seeing him up so early.
He threw a pair of underpants down on the kitchen table.
