It didn't occur to me that he wouldn't come. His mother must have got wind of it and put him off somehow.'
'I don't see how. Tommy didn't tell me you were coming and I can't imagine he would have told anyone else.'
She didn't linger all that much longer. When Arabella brought a pile of plates out of the tiny kitchen and plonked them noisily onto the dining room table alongside an arrangement of sporting mats even Edith had to admit defeat.
'I must run,' she said to her detached and unbending hostess. 'Thank you. It's been lovely seeing you again.'
Arabella nodded silently, only too glad to be rid of her but Tommy took her to the door. 'I don't know what happened,' he said. 'I am sorry.'
Edith gave him a sad little smile. 'Oh well. Perhaps it's not meant to be.' Then she kissed him and left. But for all her pretended acceptance of fate, she continued to think someone had wrecked her chances. And she was right.
It was much later in the evening when, in a rare break with my personal tradition, I was helping to clear some plates away, that I overheard a short snatch of conversation coming from behind the kitchen door.
'What do you mean?' said an exasperated Tommy.
'Exactly what I say. I thought it was unfair to spring an ambush on him when we're supposed to be his friends.'
'If that was really what you thought then why didn't you tell Charles and let him make up his own mind?'
'I might ask you the same question.'
Tommy was clearly flustered. 'Because I'm not sure he knows his own mind.'
When Arabella spoke again, it was hard to discern the faintest traces of regret. 'Precisely. And that is why I told his mother.'
'Then you're a bitch.'
'Maybe. You can tell me I was wrong in six months time. Now take in the cream and don't spill it.'
Unable to pretend that I was arranging the dirty plates for much longer, I pushed the kitchen door open to find no sign of dispute within.
'How kind you are,' said Arabella, smoothly relieving me of my burden.
My wife was reluctant to be drawn into a moral position as we drove home. 'Just don't do anything of the sort to me,' she said, and I agreed. Not that I would criticise Tommy. Indeed I thought he had acted the part of a true friend but, rather feebly perhaps, it was not a position I was anxious to find myself in. I did not repeat what Arabella had said about the six-month interval probably because, even at that stage, I did not want to take it on board.
===OO=OOO=OO===
A few days later, Edith awoke to find herself vomiting into the lavatory bowl. She must have fumbled her way there in half-sleep and it was only the act of retching that finally brought her to her senses. When at last it seemed that even the very lining of her stomach must have been discharged into the pan, she stopped, gasped for air and sat back. Simon came to the door, with his hand over the portable telephone. He slept naked and normally the sight of his godly form cheered her into a sense of present good but this morning, his lightly muscled charms were wasted on her.
'Are you all right?' he asked superfluously.
'I think it must have been those prawns,' she said, knowing full well that he had chosen the soup.
'Poor you. Better out than in.' He smiled, holding up the receiver, and mimed, 'It's your mother,' with a comic grimace.
Edith nodded and reached out her hand for the telephone. 'I'll make some coffee,' said Simon, and wandered off to the kitchen.
Edith wiped her mouth and settled her thoughts. 'Mummy? No, I was in the bathroom.'
'Was that you being sick?' said Mrs Lavery at the other end.
'Well, I don't know who else.'
'Are you all right?'
'Of course I'm all right. We went to a ghastly place in Earl's Court last night that's been opened by some failed actor Simon knows. I had shellfish. I must have been mad.'
'Only I thought you were looking rather green around the gills when I saw you.' Edith had accompanied her mother on a fruitless search for a hat the previous week. That was enough in itself to make most people fairly green but she said nothing.
'So you're not ill?'
'Certainly not.'
'You would tell me if there was… something, wouldn't you?'
Edith knew very well that she would hesitate to trust her mother with the time of day but there was no point in going into that now. 'Of course I would,' she said. There was a pause.
'And I suppose there's no news. About… everything…'
'No.'
