beak. Determined not to care what he thought, she returned to her magazine. After a while he dropped the book down on the table. Cora looked up from serious contemplation of a winter coat.
– You didn’t like the poems, she said.
She expected his vanity to be gratified by her taking an interest in his opinion, but he only looked surprised that she had spoken, as if they existed in different worlds.
– Do you read poetry?
She supposed he meant: as well as magazines.
– I do. I’m an English teacher.
He wasn’t enthusiastic. – Oh, good for you.
– Well, actually, I love what I do. But I don’t get to teach much poetry.
– Have you read this?
– No, I’ve never heard of him. I don’t think I’ll bother now. You looked violent. I thought you might have thrown it out of the window, if these windows opened.
– As a matter of fact, I did quite like it, he said. – But not enough.
– Enough for what?
After a pause he added that he wished the windows did open, because he would have enjoyed throwing books out of them, from time to time.
Cora had read that when someone is attracted to you they begin unconsciously imitating your own movements: she noticed that when she sat back in her seat now, he was drawn forward towards her, leaning his elbows on the table, frowning. It was obvious he didn’t want to talk with her about poetry, dreading the conventional and gushing opinions she might try to impress him with, reluctant to unpack his own ideas for anyone not likely to appreciate them. He had a high opinion of himself, she thought: his surface as it met the world was obviously touchy, ready with disdain. He asked where she’d got on the train and whether she lived in Cardiff; she replied that she was born there, but lived in London.
– Visiting your parents?
Cora explained that both her parents had died, and how she was doing up their house to sell. She expected him to say something sympathetic, but he only asked her what she felt about Welsh nationalism. She replied that her father had taught her to be suspicious of all nationalisms as parochial.
– Sounds like a good old Trotskyite.
– He made up his own mind about everything.
– You’re very Welsh.
She said she hated having any set of qualities foisted on her.
– That’s what I mean, he said. – If you accuse anyone of being very English, they accept it apologetically.
His accent was English, neutral rather than distinctly ruling class.
The train drew into the station at Swindon, new passengers got on, someone hesitated in the aisle at their table. They made no effort to move their bags from the seats beside them; both looked studiedly out at the platform, where those who wanted a different train seemed to wait in suspension, in a vague dusty light, cut off from the rain that poured in streams from the ends of the roofs. The person moved on: there were plenty of other places to sit. Neither acknowledged that anything had happened, but by the time the train started up again the atmosphere between them was altered, they were cut off together in their corner.
It turned out he had a house in the Welsh countryside somewhere – her geography was approximate; Robert would have known where it was. He had three daughters, two small ones, one from a first marriage, who didn’t live with him and must be about fifteen, maybe sixteen.
– How often do you see her?
– Not often enough. We don’t have anything to talk about when we do meet. I find her thoughts impenetrable. No doubt the feeling’s mutual. My other girls are darlings, they’re my heart’s delight. And do you have children?
He looked at her ring.
Something impelled her not to answer him ‘not yet’ or simply ‘no’.
– I can’t have them. We tried, but I can’t.
– I’m sorry. Should I be sorry? Are you?
She shrugged. – I would have liked it. But there it is.
– Might you think of adopting?
– No.
– OK.
It was a relief, to state the thing with such finality – as if she made it exist as an object to contemplate, stony, with clean lines and hard edges. With the loss of her parents behind her, and the loss of the babies she might have had ahead, she was withdrawn out of the past and future into this moment of herself, like a barren island, or a sealed box. It was easier to lay out this truth for the stranger’s penetrating scrutiny, and not in expectation of any kindness. The hawk beak of his interest jabbed at her, as it had at the poetry book.
They could lose one another at Paddington.
She was sitting forward at the table now, and he had fallen back into his seat. He was studying her, half-closing his eyes, as if to get her at a distance, in perspective.
– So you’re an English teacher. And what does your partner do? he asked.
– He’s a civil servant. Quite a high-up one.
– Oh dear.
– He’s an intensely moral, conscientious man, and I love him dearly.
– I can read it in your face, he said.
For a moment, ready to be enraged, she thought he intended a cheap irony; but no, he meant what he said, quite straight.
– Really?
– Yes, he’s there in your expression, something settled and steadied.
– That’s nonsense. You wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t told you, you might have thought I was involved with an unstable drunk. Or someone who taught juggling skills. You can never guess other people’s partners, they’re almost always unexpected.
– I’d never, ever, have believed you were involved with anyone with juggling skills, he promised her solemnly.
– But an unstable drunk…
– An unstable drunk, at a stretch. Though you wouldn’t put up with him for long. You’re not the martyred kind.
Cora didn’t ask him about his wife, mother of the little girls, his heart’s delight. That corrected the imbalance between them, where he was freighted down on his side with children.
He went to the buffet to get them both coffee. She commented that this was his second cup, and he agreed it probably wasn’t good for him – and he smoked too, he confessed, he ought to give that up. To her relief he didn’t show much interest in these subjects; some of her colleagues could talk for hours about their diet regimes and health.
– So, are you a poet? she asked him.
– Do I look like one?
– What is this physiognomy thing with you? There’s no art, you know, to read the mind’s construction in the face.
– Shit! I forgot, you’re an English teacher.
– What have you got against English teachers?
– Nothing, he said with exaggerated gloom. – Someone has to do it. A quotation for every occasion.
– Don’t you think it’s a wonderful thing: opening up young minds to the possibilities of literature?
– Oh, that. Do you really do any of that?
– Not much, she admitted. – I work with young adults with literacy problems. But I do like it. And I do read to them sometimes, good difficult things. You’d be surprised how much they can take in. You see, they’re made to stumble, because their reading is stumbling. So everyone gets the wrong idea, that they’re not interested in what’s in books. But just because they can’t read for themselves doesn’t necessarily mean their minds aren’t capable of
