problem. None of this is about changing you.’ The encroaching dusk brought a melancholy aspect to the garden, and the lights from the house combined with the smoke and the evening mist to create an atmosphere of pale ochre. Marta stood up. ‘It always gets depressing at this time of night,’ she said. ‘Let’s go inside.’
Josephine followed her into the house, and waited alone in the sitting room while Marta went to change. Inside, the house was very much what she would have expected—elegant, although not particularly tidy, and furnished according to individual taste rather than fashion or expectation. In two months, Marta had managed to create the illusion of a much longer occupancy, and Josephine could imagine how much time she had invested in the house, seeking the safety that Mary Size had talked about in a home rather than another human being.
The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and she walked over to the French windows, looking out into the darkness and enjoying the sound of the rain against the glass. ‘It’s a lovely view when you can see it,’ Marta said, putting an armful of logs down in the hearth. ‘Just trees beyond the wall, with the odd roof or gable, and the spires of the city in the distance.’ She waved dismissively at the garden. ‘Shame about the no-man’s-land in between.’
‘It won’t look like that forever. You’ll have it beaten into shape by the spring.’
‘Damn right I will. Beverley Nichols is moving in round the corner, apparently, so the challenge is on.’
She took longer than was absolutely necessary to lay the fire, and Josephine noticed that she was much less relaxed than she had been in the garden, as if coming inside had forced her to focus on the awkwardness between them. Being here with her was a different experience entirely from reading the diary, where the strength of Marta’s emotions and her ability to analyse them had left Josephine feeling like a gauche, inexperienced schoolgirl. Shy and reticent when it came to anything other than her work, Josephine so very rarely made someone else uneasy; now, she seemed to be more in control than Marta, and she was ashamed to acknowledge that she found it gratifying.
Marta poured them each a large gin and sat down by the fire. ‘So what did you dress for, if it wasn’t gardening?’
‘A day by the sea. Archie had to go to Suffolk for something to do with a case he’s investigating, and he asked me to go with him.’
‘Doesn’t he have sergeants any more?’ Marta asked, and her expression was so like Archie’s whenever her own name was mentioned that Josephine would have laughed had she not found the inevitable triangle so tiresome. Right now, she would gladly have absented herself from the whole situation and let the two of them fight it out between themselves. ‘Does he know you’re here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I bet that made his day.’ Josephine said nothing; she refused to be drawn into a conversation which would reflect badly on Archie, and to defend him felt like protesting too much. ‘Is there anyone else?’ Marta asked, and Josephine shook her head. ‘You know, I often wondered if you and Lydia would get together after I left. She’s always admired you.’
‘We’re friends, that’s all,’ Josephine said impatiently, wondering if she would be asked to justify every relationship she had. ‘It will never be anything more than that.’
‘And where do you draw the line? Spending time together? Enjoying things more together?’ She finished her drink and got up to fetch another. ‘Having sex?’
She was being deliberately provocative, and Josephine realised that she was simply adopting the best form of defence, but her question was less straightforward than it sounded. Even as it stood, her relationship with Marta was unlike anything else in her life: she and Lydia shared a creative bond and a mutual admiration, but she increasingly felt obliged to be somebody else whenever they were together and, if you removed the theatre, they had very little in common; Ronnie and Lettice’s friendship was an uncomplicated joy, which was picked up and put down again with no damage to its significance; and Archie—well, there was no question that she loved Archie and would choose his company over any other; if he pushed her like Marta was pushing her, she had no idea what she would do—but she knew that he never would. None of those relationships risked anything, none of them made the slightest difference to the world she returned to in Inverness—to her real life, she supposed. But Marta was different: she threatened to blur all the boundaries that Josephine had so carefully drawn. Although they had spent very little time together, most of it had been on their own without the safety of numbers, and they had been thrown together in circumstances which demanded an intense emotional honesty; she knew that Marta was capable of awakening something in her which her life would be happier—or at least more content—without. Complacent, Gerry had called it, but frightened would have been more accurate.
She took the diary out of her bag and put it down on the table. Marta said nothing, wanting her to speak first. ‘This is all so foreign to me that I don’t even know how to begin to respond to it,’ Josephine said quietly.
‘Because it comes from another woman?’
‘What? No, don’t be silly. Why should that make a difference? No, it’s not that.’ She hesitated, realising that any attempt at an explanation would expose flaws in her own character which Marta might scorn, but she owed it to her to be honest. ‘It’s the intensity of it, Marta—the strength of how you feel. I’m not hard-hearted, I don’t lack imagination, but I’ve never felt like that about anyone. This love that you have for me—look how unhappy it’s made you. I haven’t often made people unhappy in my life.’
‘Perhaps they just didn’t tell you. But I didn’t hand it over for you to beat yourself up with—making you feel sorry for me was the last thing I wanted.’
‘I know, and that’s not what I meant.’ She left the sofa and sat down by the fire next to Marta. ‘I’m being much more selfish than that. You’re writing about emotions that terrify me—because of what they might do to both of us.’
Marta took her hand. ‘You really didn’t know, did you? I thought at first that you were just trying to brush it aside, but you had no idea how I felt until I told you.’
‘No, I didn’t. And I suppose, in hindsight, that makes me very stupid.’ She laughed. ‘Even Lettice had spotted it, for God’s sake.’
‘You’ve spoken to her about us?’
‘No, not really, but she saw I was upset the other night at dinner and I told her you’d been in touch. Lydia was there as well, much to my surprise. As you can imagine, it wasn’t the easiest of evenings.’
‘Surely you didn’t say anything to Lydia?’
‘Of course not, but I felt vile about it and we can’t go on like this.’ She took her hand away and stared resolutely into the fire. ‘Go back to Lydia, Marta. She loves you, and she’ll accept all the love you can give her in a way that I don’t think I ever could.’
‘So that’s still your answer? To come here as some sort of selfless ambassador for someone else?’ She got up and placed herself in front of the hearth, forcing Josephine to look at her. ‘And what if I did go back to Lydia? How would you feel? Tell me honestly, Josephine.’
There was no need to think about it: she had asked herself the same question many times. ‘Jealous, I suppose. Resentful. But mostly relieved—relieved that things could go back to normal.’
‘And what does normal mean? Sitting in Inverness where no one can touch you? God in heaven, Josephine —what on earth is the matter with you? Why submit to being half alive when life is so short? Don’t you ever want to watch the sun rise from somewhere that isn’t Crown Cottage or Cavendish Square? Breathe some different air for once?’
Josephine was used to Marta’s sudden bursts of anger by now, and it wasn’t that which unsettled her. ‘You don’t understand,’ she began hesitantly. ‘I’m perfectly happy as I am.’
‘I’m sure you are, but just remember—a dying man often says leave me alone, I want to die, but when he recovers, he trembles every time he remembers his foolishness.’
‘So being with you is a matter of life and death, is it? Jesus, Marta, I thought I was arrogant. Why don’t you just listen for a moment? I don’t want the things you think I should want, and telling me that I want them won’t make me change my mind.’
‘No? Then perhaps this will.’ Marta moved forward to kiss her. As Josephine tasted the gin on her mouth and felt the softness of her skin, she realised that she wanted more than anything to understand what it was like to lose the rest of the world in the sheer joy of one person. She felt Marta hesitate, surprised by her response; tenderly, she put her hand up to Marta’s face, pulling her closer in the hope that the sudden wonder of their intimacy would be enough to prevent her from coming to her senses. For a moment, the simple disbelief of what was happening was enough to convince her that nobody could be hurt by what they did, that she herself would remain unchanged
