She observed the pile she’d created. “I have no idea.”
He chuckled. “Mad woman.” He walked over to the day’s post, which was in a neat pile near the kitchen phone. He said, “Did you speak with that bloke about restoring the stained glass?”
She had, she told him. He thought he could match the glass in the other windows in the main hall, but it would take some doing. He could either take the original out for a while or he could bring glass to them, but in either case, it would be expensive. Did Nicky want…?
Their conversation found its way back to normalcy: compromise reached and tension gone. They went on to other matters that concerned them till Nicholas found the phone message that Alatea had forgotten she’d written, so intent had she been on getting past babies, doctors in Lancaster, and what Nicholas wanted and expected of her.
“What’s this, then?” he said, holding up the paper she’d torn from a notebook earlier in the day.
“Ah. You’ve had a call. A television film is being made and a woman phoned. She would like to speak with you about it. She is a… I think she called it a scout of research, something like that.”
He frowned. “What kind of film?”
“Alternative treatments for drug addiction. This is a documentary, she said. Interviews with addicts and doctors and social workers. The involvement of a film crew and someone with them — a celebrity? a presenter? I do not know — to ask the questions. I told her it is not likely you would be interested, but — ”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why’d you tell her that?”
She went for one of her cookbooks. Nicholas had created for her a recessed shelf for them above the cooker hob, and she grabbed one at random, wondering what she could possibly do with three onions chopped into tiny bits. She said, “This sort of thing… this is what feeds the ego, Nicky. We have talked about that, you and I. It cannot be good, because of where it leads. Because of all the things you must guard against.”
“Right. Right. But it’s not about me, Allie.” He looked again at the paper he held. “Where’s she from? Where’re the filmmakers from?”
“I did not ask. I did not think…” She looked at the cover of the cookbook she was holding. She gathered her thoughts, considered her approach. She said, “Nicky, you must take care with this sort of thing. You always said that your part is quiet. Behind the scenes. This is best.”
“Raising money to keep the project going is best,” he countered. “This could be what we need to make that happen.”
“And when it does not?”
“Why d’you say that?”
“The other thing… that newspaperman who was here so many times… what came of that? Nothing. And all the hours you spent with him, the talking, the walking round, the working at the pele tower with him, and what then? More nothing. He promises a story and what comes of his promise? Nothing. I do not wish to see the disappointment in your face,” she told him. Because of where it might lead was what he would add in his own head. But that could not be helped.
His expression changed, but not to hardness. Rather, he seemed to glow at her and the source of the glow was his love. He said, “Darling Allie, you’re not to worry. I do know what’s at risk for me every day.” He picked up the phone but didn’t punch in the number. “This isn’t about ego. This is about saving lives, like mine was saved.”
“You always have claimed I saved your life.”
“No,” he replied. “You made it worth living. I’d like to see what this is about” — he gestured with the phone — “but I won’t do it without your agreement.”
She saw no other way. He was asking very little. After all that he had given to her, there seemed no course available but to say, “All right, then, Nicky. If you will have a care.”
“Brilliant,” he replied. He looked at the paper and punched in the number. As he did so, he said to Alatea, “What’s the surname, Allie? I can’t read your writing.”
She came to look over his shoulder at what she’d written. “St. James,” she said.
GREAT URSWICK
CUMBRIA
When the gates of Margaret Fox School opened, Manette Fairclough McGhie sighed in relief. She’d thought there was a very good chance that Niamh Cresswell wouldn’t have phoned the school to inform them that her son would be fetched on this day by someone not on the previously approved list. It would have been exactly like Niamh to have done so. Niamh knew that Manette had been close to Ian, which in Niamh’s eyes made Manette a post- divorce enemy. But it seemed that Ian’s former wife had decided that the convenience of having an additional someone willing to fetch her son outweighed her need to avenge all putative sins committed against her. She’d said, “I’ll let Gracie know. She’ll be upset if Tim doesn’t show up at his regular time,” and this made Manette feel that she ought to be taking Gracie as well as Tim, but it was Tim she wanted to see today, Tim whose face at his father’s funeral still haunted Manette’s nights. This would be her tenth attempt to get through to her cousin Ian’s son. She’d tried at the reception immediately following the funeral. She’d tried with phone calls. She’d tried by e- mail. And now she was going for the direct approach. Tim could hardly avoid her if she had him in the car.
She’d left work early, stopping by Freddie’s office to tell him she’d see him at home. “I’m fetching Tim,” she said. “Thought he might like to spend the evening with us. Dinner and a DVD. You know. Perhaps stay the night?” Freddie’s reply had somewhat surprised her. Instead of an absent-minded, “Oh, right, Manette,” her erstwhile partner in life had turned the red of a very bad sunburn and said, “Oh yes. As to that… ”, and after a bit of uncharacteristic stumbling round, had gone on with, “I’ve a date, actually, Manette.”
She’d said, “Oh,” and tried to hide her surprise.
He’d hurried on with, “I rather thought it was time. I probably should have told you before now, but I didn’t quite know how to put it.”
Manette didn’t like the way she felt about this, but she forced a smile and said, “Oh. Lovely, Freddie. Anyone I know?”
“No, no. Of course not. Just someone…”
“How’d you meet?”
He moved back from his desk. On the monitor behind him, she could see a graph and she wondered what he was working on. Profits and losses, probably. He was also due to analyse wages and benefits. And there was the not small matter of formally going through the books following Ian’s death. When on earth had Freddie even found the time to meet someone? she wondered. He said, “Actually, I’d rather not talk about it. It feels a bit uncomfortable.”
“Oh. Right.” Manette nodded. He was watching her earnestly to gauge her reaction so she was careful to give him a cheerful one. “P’rhaps you c’n bring her by, then. I’ll want to see if I approve. You don’t want to make a second mistake.”
“You weren’t a mistake,” he told her.
“Ah. Thanks for saying that.” She fished in her bag and brought out her car keys. She said brightly, “Still my best friend, then?”
“Still and always,” he replied.
What he didn’t say was what she knew: that they couldn’t go on forever as they were, divorced but housemates, everything the same in their lives save where they slept and with whom they made love. What remained was the deep friendship that had always existed between them, which was, at the end, the root of the problem. She’d often thought since the day they’d agreed to divorce that things might have been different had they been able to have children together, that their relationship wouldn’t have deteriorated to the point of their dinnertime conversation being all about the benefits of a self-cleaning and self-deodorising lavatory and how to market it. One couldn’t go on like that indefinitely without waking up one morning and wondering where the magic had gone. A friendly divorce seemed the best solution.
