room — the unmade bed, Harriet’s clothes strewn over every chair, the brimming ashtrays.
‘Cheer up,’ said Simon. ‘At least it’s a lovely day. Come on, lovie, get your things together; we haven’t got much time.’
As he threw records, scarves, papers, make-up into her suitcase, she felt he was getting out an india rubber and carefully erasing every trace of her from his life. He was hard put to contain his elation. Even his goodbye was absent-minded. He patted her on the bottom and told her to behave herself. She could almost hear his sigh of relief as he shut the door and rushed back to tidy up for Borzoi.
She went straight home and dumped her suitcase. For a minute she lay on her bed and listened to the clocks striking all over Oxford. Only eleven o’clock. A whole day to be got through, a whole lifetime without Simon stretching ahead. She got up, turned on the gas and knelt down beside it; after ten seconds the meter ran out.
Mrs Glass came in and started to shout at her for the rent, then she saw Harriet’s face and stopped. ‘White as a corpse, poor little thing,’ she told her husband afterwards. ‘’Er sins must have catched up with ’er.’
Harriet got up and went out and walked round the town, the slush leaking into her boots. She didn’t notice the cold even in her thin coat. She had nothing of Simon’s. He had written her no letters, given her no presents. How crazy she had been, how presumptuous to think for a moment she could hold him. It was like trying to catch the sun with a fishing net. She walked three times round the same churchyard, then took a bus to Headington, looking at the trees, their branches shiny from the melting snow. She got off the bus and began to walk again, thinking over and over again of the times Simon and she had spent together, illuminated now in the light. Never again would she tremble at his touch, or talk to him or gaze at him. All she would hear was stupid people yapping about his latest exploits, that he’d landed a part in a play, that he was back with Borzoi.
It couldn’t be true. Borzoi would come back, Simon would realize they couldn’t make a go of it, and send for Harriet again. Wading through the cold grey slush, she walked back to her digs and fell shuddering into bed.
Everyone said, ‘I told you so.’ Geoffrey was magnanimous, then irritated that she wouldn’t snap out of it, then furious that Simon had succeeded where he had failed, and made violent attempts to get her into bed. Her girlfriends, who had all been jealous of her and Simon, were secretly pleased it was over. Theo Dutton was vitriolic about the badness of her essay.
The child looked in terrible shape. She was obviously having some kind of crisis.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Who is it?’
‘No-one, nothing,’ she muttered. ‘Simon Villiers.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear. He was the nasty bug all my girl students caught last summer. I thought he’d gone out of fashion now. I must say I’m disappointed in you, Harriet. I thought you had better taste. He was one of the worst students I’ve ever had; his mind is earth-shatteringly banal.’
Then, like Mrs Glass, he saw the stricken look on her face and realized he was on the wrong tack.
For days she didn’t eat, wandering round Oxford getting thinner and thinner, gazing for hours at the river, wondering whether to jump, hanging around Simon’s digs at a respectable distance hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Mostly she saw him come out and sit in his car, impatiently drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, revving up the car, lighting cigarette after cigarette. Then Borzoi would come spilling out, spraying on scent, trailing coloured scarves, her gorgeous streaky gold hair tumbling over her face. And they would drive off arguing furiously.
Chapter Seven
It was only after a month that Harriet started to worry — but it was a worry that was nothing compared with losing Simon. Another week slipped by, then one evening she washed her hair and put on a black dress of Susie’s that she’d never been able to get into before, but which now hung off her, and went to see Simon. She waited in the cold till Borzoi had gone out, almost biting her lip through as she watched Simon kiss her in the doorway. Then Borzoi drove off with a roar, and Simon went back into the house. He took a long time to answer the doorbell. For a minute she gazed at him close up; he was after all only a face. How could he have caused her so much unhappiness? Then suddenly all the old longing came flooding back.
‘Hullo,’ he said, hardly seeming to recognize her. ‘Oh it’s you,’ he added politely. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Can I come in?’
He looked at his watch. ‘I’m going out in a second.’
‘I don’t want to hassle you, but it’s important.’
‘Oh dear,’ he sighed. ‘Well, you’d better come in.’
The room was in chaos. There were ashtrays full of stubs everywhere and finger-smeared tumblers, and cups full of old wet coffee grounds. Clothes, everything from fur coats to party dresses, lay piled high on every chair.
‘Tidiness has never been Borzoi’s strong point,’ said Simon, picking some dead flowers out of their vase and throwing them dripping into the ashes of the fireplace. ‘Thank God the char’s coming in the morning.’
He put a cigarette in his mouth — not offering her one.
‘Well,’ he said, noticing her red-rimmed eyes. ‘How are things? You’ve lost a lot of weight. Been dieting?’
Harriet took a deep breath. ‘Simon, I’m pregnant.’
The match flared. Simon breathed in deeply. The end of the cigarette glowed. He threw the match into the fire.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I had the results of the test yesterday.’
‘But you were on the pill.’
‘I know; but I’d only just started taking it, and the night we first w-went to bed together, I was in such a state beforehand I think I may have forgotten to take it.’
‘Bloody little fool,’ said Simon, but not unkindly. ‘Are you sure it’s mine?’
She looked up horrified, her eyes full of tears.
‘Oh yes, there’s never been anyone else.’
‘What about Jeremy or Gordon, or whatever he was called.’
‘Geoffrey? Oh no, I couldn’t. I didn’t. .’
She started to cry.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Simon. She was aware only of the terrible boredom in his voice. She might have been some mild inconvenience, a button off his shirt, a pair of dark glasses left in a taxi.
He went into the kitchen and put the kettle on.
‘Well, you’d better go to London as soon as possible, and see Dr Wallace.’
‘What for?’
‘To get rid of it of course.’
‘B-but I couldn’t.’
‘It’s not dangerous any more, darling. You don’t want to listen to any of those old wives’ tales. Dr Wallace is a pro. They just suck it out with a Hoover these days.’
Harriet winced.
‘Borzoi’s been to him twice,’ said Simon. ‘So have Chloe and Deirdre and Anne-Marie and Henrietta. Honestly, he ought to give me a discount the number of birds I’ve sent to him.’
‘But I don’t want. .’ Harriet began.
‘You might feel a bit depressed afterwards, but it’s the end of term next week, so you can go home and recuperate.’
‘But it’ll be so expensive. I don’t want to rip you off.’
‘Oh don’t worry about that, darling; I’ll treat you. I’m not that much of a sod. Do you mind Nescafe? Borzoi insists on making real coffee, but it’s so disgusting, and I can never get the coffee grounds out of my teeth.’
